T'ai Chi Might Fight Shingles
Ancient martial art boosts seniors' immunity to the virus

(HealthDay News) -- A new weapon, perhaps unexpected, has emerged in the fight against shingles, the painful, blistery skin rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox.

Research at the University of California , Los Angeles , has found that t'ai chi, a traditional Chinese form of exercise, might improve older adults' immune response to the varicella zoster virus.

"One in five people who have had chickenpox will get shingles later in life, usually after age 50, and the risk increases as people get older," Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, a co-sponsor of the study, said in a prepared statement. "More research is needed, but this study suggests that the T'ai Chi intervention tested, in combination with immunization, may enhance protection of older adults from this painful condition."

Shingles often causes burning or tingling pain and sometimes produces numbness or itch, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The symptoms generally affect one particular location on one side of the body.

After chickenpox, it's believed that the varicella zoster virus lies dormant in the body. When it reactivates, it causes shingles. Antiviral drugs are usually used to reduce the severity and duration of the attack and reduce the painful aftereffects of shingles, known as postherpetic neuralgia.

And while there's no cure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine, called Zostavax, in 2006, to help reduce the risk of shingles among people 60 and older who have had chickenpox.

So, why would t'ai chi help? Though it began as a method of self-defense, the ancient martial art is now used for health purposes, according to the National Center for Complimentary and Alternative Medicine. Practitioners of t'ai chi believe that the slow, gentle movements they perform, along with deep breathing and meditation, help the flow of vital energy, or "qi" (pronounced chee ) throughout the body.

In the United States , t'ai chi is considered a complementary or alternative therapy. The center co-sponsored the study and is sponsoring a number of others to determine how t'ai chi works and what diseases or conditions it might help.

The study by University of California researchers involved 112 healthy adults ages 59 to 86, all of whom had had chickenpox earlier in life. Each person participated either in a 16-week program of t'ai chi or a health education program that provided 120 minutes of instruction each week; they all had their blood tested to assess their level of immunity to the varicella zoster virus.

After 16 weeks, people in both groups received a single injection of the chickenpox vaccine Varivax, and, nine weeks later, the blood tests were repeated.

T'ai chi alone boosted participants' immunity to the virus as much as the vaccine typically does in people 30 to 40 years old, the study found. And when combined with the vaccine, t'ai chi produced a significantly higher level of immunity: about 40 percent greater than the vaccine alone, the researchers reported.

Over 25 weeks, the t'ai chi group's rate of increase in immunity was double that of the health education group. The results were published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society .

Lead author Dr. Michael Irwin, director of the UCLA Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, noted in a prepared statement that the findings are exciting, "because the positive results of this study also have implications for other infectious diseases, like influenza and pneumonia."

On the Web

To learn more about t'ai chi, visit the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

SOURCES: HealthDay News ; University of California , Los Angeles , news release, April 1, 2007; National Institute on Aging, news release, April 6, 2007; National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda , Md. ; National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Bethesda , Md.
Author: Karen Pallarito
Publication Date: April 30, 2008
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