What are the scientifically proven benefits of mindfulness meditation? Has anyone got a good idea which benefits of mindfulness meditation have got decent scientific evidence supporting them. It would be great it someone could point to good publicly available research or authoritative sites and maybe summarise the research and perhaps the people/organisations doing it.

I'm personally convinced of the benefits due to my own personal experience but I'm interested what the scientific community is saying. I'm sure there is a lot of research out there but I find distilling it overwhelming.
The USA's NIH has an NCCAM page for meditation with links to up-to-date research on the benefits of meditation:

http://nccam.nih.gov/health/meditation

Asking for scientific proof is a bit misguided, I think, and in the case of meditation it's difficult to obtain even conclusive evidence. Many of the studies are suggestive at best, but the topics studied include:


Smoking Cessation
Reducing Risk of Suicidal Thoughts
Treating Ulcerative Colitis
Effecting Genetic Changes (esp. prostate)
Treating Acute Respiratory Infections
Reducing Severity of IBS in Women
Effecting Structural Changes and Improving Information Processing in the Brain
Coping With Stress
Improving Cell-Level Processes Related to Disease
Cultivating Empathy