Tai Chi Helps Fight Shingles

All people over 60 are recommended to have a vaccination against shingles – it doesn’t really matter if they had childhood chickenpox or not, as virtually all adults of this age have had chickenpox or a subclinical infection with the herpes zoster virus. Shingles is an extremely unpleasant condition, and steps to prevent it are worth-while. Recently, a study has been reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society that describes the benefits of Tai Chi in enhancing the body’s response to the virus.

One hundred and twelve healthy adults over 60 were allocated to 16 weeks’ Tai-Chi or health education talks. They were then vaccinated with varicella-zoster vaccine; all subjects were seen again after a further 9 weeks.

The cell-mediated immunity (CMI) to varicella zoster virus was measured at baseline, and at 8, 12, 16, and 25 weeks. The Tai Chi group had higher levels of CMI than the health education group (24% vs. 13% cell frequency), with rates of increase about twice that of the health education subjects. The CMI level achieved by Tai Chi was about equal to that produced by vaccination, so that Tai Chi plus vaccination delivered double the response than that from either measure alone.

The Tai Chi used in this study consisted of 40-minute sessions, 3 times a week; the sessions included meditation and repeated physical activity with 20 exercises, supervised by masters-level Tai Chi Chih instructors. Using a recognized health survey questionnaire, the Tai Chi subjects were shown to have significant improvements in physical functioning, bodily pain, vitality, and mental health, compared with the health education group.

It looks as if we all ought to be Tai Chi-ing like crazy. It surely can’t hurt, and may do a lot of good.

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