Improve Hypertension with Tai Chi
By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.
“under well-designed conditions, Tai Chi exercise training could decrease blood pressure and results in favorable lipid profile changes and improve subjects’ anxiety status. Therefore, Tai Chi could be used as an alternative modality in treating patients with mild hypertension, with a promising economic effect.” – Jen-Chen Tsai
High Blood Pressure (Hypertension) is an insidious disease because there are no overt symptoms. The individual feels fine. But it can be deadly as more than 360,000 American deaths, roughly 1,000 deaths each day, had high blood pressure as a primary or contributing cause. In addition, hypertension markedly increases the risk heart attack, stroke, heart failure, and kidney disease. It is also a very common disorder with about 70 million American adults (29%) having high blood pressure and only about half (52%) of people with high blood pressure have their condition under control. Treatment frequently includes antihypertensive drugs. But these medications often have adverse side effects. So, patients feel lousy when taking the drugs, but fine when they’re not. So, compliance is a major issue with many patients not taking the drugs regularly or stopping entirely.
Obviously, there is a need for alternative to drug treatments for hypertension. Mindfulness practices have been shown to aid in controlling hypertension. Mindful movement practices such Tai Chi and Qigong are ancient Chinese practices involving mindfulness and gentle movements. They may be appropriate for patients with hypertension who lack the ability to engage in strenuous exercises. Indeed, Qigong practice has been shown to reduce blood pressure. There have been a number of studies performed and it is useful to summarize what has been learned.
In today’s Research News article “Tai Ji Quan as antihypertensive lifestyle therapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis.” (See summary below or view the full text of the study at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987647/ ) Wu and colleagues reviewed, summarized, and performed a meta-analysis of the published research studies on the effectiveness of Tai Chi practice for the treatment of hypertension in adults..
They found 15 published controlled research studies and report that these studies found that Tai Chi practice alone produced significant reductions in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in patients with hypertension. These effects were greatest when the baseline blood pressure was highest. The size of the blood pressure reductions would be expected to reduce cardiovascular disease risk by at least 40%.
It is important to note that Tai Chi and Qigong are ancient mindfulness practices involving slow prescribed movements. They are gentle and completely safe, can be used with the elderly and sickly, are inexpensive to administer, can be performed in groups or alone, at home or in a facility or even public park, and can be quickly learned. In addition, they can also be practiced in social groups without professional supervision. This can make it fun, improving the likelihood of long-term engagement in the practice. Hence, Tai Chi practice is an almost ideal treatment for hypertension.
So, improve hypertension with Tai Chi.
“Despite its gentle nature, the health benefits of tai chi can be impressive.” – Abbott
CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies
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Study Summary
Wu, Y., Johnson, B. T., Chen, S., Chen, Y., Livingston, J., & Pescatello, L. S. (2021). Tai Ji Quan as antihypertensive lifestyle therapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of sport and health science, 10(2), 211–221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jshs.2020.03.007
Abstract
Background
Professional health organizations are not currently recommending Tai Ji Quan alongside aerobic exercise to treat hypertension. We aimed to examine the efficacy of Tai Ji Quan as antihypertensive lifestyle therapy.
Methods
Tai Ji Quan interventions published in English and Chinese were included when they involved healthy adults, reported pre- and post-intervention blood pressure (BP), and had a non-exercise/non-diet control group. We systematically searched 11 electronic databases for studies published through July 31, 2018, yielding 31 qualifying controlled trials. We (1) evaluated the risk of bias and methodological study quality, (2) performed meta-regression analyses following random-effects assumptions, and (3) generated additive models representing the largest possible clinically relevant BP reductions.
Results
Participants (n = 3223) were middle-aged (56.6 ± 15.1 years of age, mean ± SD) adults with prehypertension (systolic BP (SBP) = 136.9 ± 15.2 mmHg, diastolic BP (DBP) = 83.4 ± 8.7 mmHg). Tai Ji Quan was practiced 4.0 ± 1.4 sessions/week for 54.0 ± 10.6 min/session for 22.3 ± 20.2 weeks. Overall, Tai Ji Quan elicited significant reductions in SBP (–11.3 mmHg, 95%CI: –14.6 to –8.0; d+ = –0.75) and DBP (–4.8 mmHg, 95%CI: –6.4 to –3.1; d+ = –0.53) vs. control (p < 0.001). Controlling for publication bias among samples with hypertension, Tai Ji Quan trials published in English elicited SBP reductions of 10.4 mmHg and DBP reductions of 4.0 mmHg, which was half the magnitude of trials published in Chinese (SBP reductions of 18.6 mmHg and DBP reductions of 8.8 mmHg).
Conclusion
Our results indicate that Tai Ji Quan is a viable antihypertensive lifestyle therapy that produces clinically meaningful BP reductions (i.e., 10.4 mmHg and 4.0 mmHg of SBP and DBP reductions, respectively) among individuals with hypertension. Such magnitude of BP reductions can lower the incidence of cardiovascular disease by up to 40%.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7987647/