Study: Taiji and Immune System

[RAF]

Tai Chi May Help Prevent Shingles, Study Finds
Mon Sep 22, 5:37 PM ET Add Health - Reuters to My Yahoo!

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tai chi exercises may help prevent shingles, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.

Tests on 36 older men and women showed the combination of relaxation and movement used in tai chi boosted immunity to the virus that causes the painful outbreaks.

"Our findings offer a unique and exciting example of mind over matter," said Dr. Michael Irwin of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California Los Angeles.

The study, published in the September edition of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, did not show whether tai chi practitioners were less likely to ever develop shingles.

Shingles affects people who had chickenpox when younger. The herpes virus that causes chickenpox, called varicella, lingers in the body, infecting nerve cells.


When immunity to the virus weakens, usually with age, it can cause painful blisters on the skin. The pain can be severe and can linger for years.


Irwin's team tested 36 men and women with an average age of 70. None had ever suffered an outbreak of shingles but all had once had chickenpox.

Half, or 18, took tai chi chih (TCC) courses for 45 minutes three days a week, while the rest did nothing extra.

"TCC is a westernized version of Tai Chi Chuan, an exercise form that has existed as a martial art in the Chinese culture for 2000 years and as an exercise for elderly people for around 300 years," the researchers wrote.

Tai chi consists of slow and precise movements that include coordinated breathing.

Fifteen weeks later, the researchers tested their immune systems and also their general physical condition.

Those who had done tai chi not only felt healthier, but had a boost of up to 50 percent of immune system cells called memory T-cells that are specifically guided to recognize and attack varicella.

A large body of research shows how behavior can negatively affect the immune system and health, but ours is the first randomized, controlled study to demonstrate that behavior can have a positive effect on immunity that protects against shingles," Irwin said.

[ripat]

> Half, or 18, took tai chi chih (TCC) courses
> for 45 minutes three days a week, while the
> rest did nothing extra.

> "TCC is a westernized version of Tai Chi
> Chuan, an exercise form that has existed as
> a martial art in the Chinese culture for 2000
> years and as an exercise for elderly people
> for around 300 years," the researchers
> wrote.

"Tai chi chih (TCC)"??? Never heard of that...

[GLW]

Tai Chi Chih ...

there are two kinds...

One is Taiji Ruler. It uses a wooden apparatus and routine.

In this case, I don't think that is what was being done.

There is an instructor out ther that is VERY good at self promotion and or questionable ability that came up with his simplified version of Taijiquan and called it Tai Chi Chih.

It is about 20% of what Taijiquan is in form only. The instructors go off for a one week or so class starting from scratch and come back certified to teach...and sell his books and tapes.

It looks like very bad Qi Gong.

It WILL have health benefits but a real regimen in Taijiquan would prove to be a better thing.

Unfortunately, those doing the research know next to nothing about Taijiquan or other things and so they get impressed by such charlatans. Charlatans ALWAYS know how to sell themselves.

It would be nice if just once they had a reputable teacher working with them in the studies.

[RAF]

Amen!

Given the variety of skill levels, knowledge, and even systems, its one of the most difficult challenges to measure the medical benefits of taiji using double-blind studies etc. etc..

If you start out to practice taji for scientifically proven medical benefits, you might be disappointed as you make your assessment.

Better you get into taiji for some other reason.

How do you not throw the baby out with the bath water?
Standardization and certification aren't much of an answer if the past is anything to go on.

Teaching it strictly as a martial art means you lose a whole lot of the market and in the long run, it will probably fade and die.

If you think this is bad, years ago Adam Hsu predicted (didn't say he agreed with) bagua would become the future exercise for health and conditioning. Kang Ge Wu, on his tape, cites a study done in China during the early 80s with senior citizens on the benefits of bagua.

One compromise is to teach the art along with applications for demonstration only and then train hardcore martial artists privately or in their own class.

I guess we have to take a lot of this on the basis of faith and anecdotal evidence and that's why its nice to find studies like the one done in Reuter's. Like it or not, as the population ages and preventative medicine becomes a component of reducing medical costs, the Chinese martial arts will have an ever increasing presence along with all its problems.

Commercialization, like it or hate it, is the wave of the future and there appears there is little one can do, especially if you are a hardcore, martial arts practitioner of taiji.

Oh well, its back to making a living!

[Kuanti]

I haven't read the artical, but the from what is shown above there was no proper control group. To show that it was a "tai chi" specific effect, and not from simply doing some excerise; the other group, that where left to rest, should have also done some gentle excerise as well.

This is the problem with most Tai Chi, research, there are very rarely any proper controls. Without them, the results don't say much at all!

[Vapour]

Unfortunately, it doesn't prove anything about magic of taichi until we compare control group of people who practice taichi against people who do, say, streching or bodybuilding every day for equal amount of time.

[Laughing Cow]

Have to agree there with vapour & kuanti.

The test prooves NOTHING, ZILCH, NAADA, NICHTS, etc.

Any form of exercise will boost your immune system when compared to a group that does not exercise.

The question should be is TCC(yuuck) any better than other exercises in boosting the immune system.

Seeya.

[Kuanti]

Originally posted by Laughing Cow
boost your immune

I always wonder what that really means?
I can see that it can improve your circulation and as a consquence the efficiency of your immune system is "boosted", maybe?