Daily HealthBeat Tip - March 29, 2007

Tai chi and good nerves

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Tai chi training can help older folks preserve muscle and balance. But there may be other benefits to the slow-movement Chinese exercise routines, such as better control of how the nervous system influences blood pressure.

Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles and the National Institutes of Health checked people 60 to 85 years old. The researchers measured activity of the sympathetic nervous system, which helps to regulate blood pressure, in people who had just done tai chi, and compared that with people who only sat quietly.

Sarosh Motivala at UCLA:

"The sympathetic nervous system is associated with fight-or-flight responses, and chronically high activity is involved with the development of hypertension. We found that tai chi practitioners could slow down their sympathetic activity simply by performing tai chi." (13 seconds)

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: April, 06 2007