Introduction to Tai Chi

General health and fitness. Tai chi may be gentle, but it improves fitness, especially in the elderly. Korean researchers enrolled 23 nursing home residents in a 12-week tai chi program. By the end of it, compared with a control group that did not participate in the tai chi program, those who did showed significantly improved balance and flexibility, better physical function, and improved general health. A study in Hong Kong shows that tai chi also improves muscle strength and stamina.

Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s impairs mobility. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis enrolled 17 people with Parkinson’s in a 20-hour tai chi training program over 12 weeks. Afterward, compared with untrained controls, the tai chi group showed significantly improved balance and the ability to stand up and walk backward.

Osteoarthritis. Many elderly people — and quite a few younger folks — suffer stiff, sore, painful arthritis of the knee. Korean scientists recruited 46 people, average age 75, for a tai chi class that met two hours a week for 12 weeks. At the class’s conclusion, compared with a control group who did not learn tai chi, those who did reported less knee pain, stiffness and disability, and improved balance and knee mobility.

Osteoporosis. Weight-bearing exercise (walking, dance, tennis or gardening, but not swimming or biking) improves bone mineral density and reduces risk of bone loss. Tai chi is also weight-bearing exercise, and researchers in Hong Kong have shown that it improves bone mineral density.

Blood Pressure. Harvard researchers reviewed 26 studies of tai chi’s effects on blood pressure, a key risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Twenty-two of them (85 percent) showed that tai chi lowers blood pressure significantly.

Heart disease. Researchers in Taiwan report that in addition to reducing blood pressure, tai chi also lowers cholesterol, improves heart and arterial function, and speeds healing in post-heart-attack and post-bypass rehabilitation.

Heart Failure. When the heart becomes chronically fatigued, it can’t pump blood around the body efficiently, and the body suffers a loss of oxygen and nutrients. Over time, this becomes life-threatening. Harvard researchers gave 30 heart failure sufferers standard medical care, and in addition, enrolled half of them in a tai chi program. After 12 weeks, those in the tai chi group showed increased stamina and improved quality of life.