Tai Chi May Boost Immune System

Benefit Seen in Older Adults After Taking Martial Art

By Miranda Hitti

WebMD Medical News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 29, 2007 -- Tai chi, a traditional Chinese martial art, may give older adults' immune system a boost. That news comes from experts at UCLA and the University of California, San Diego. They included Michael Irwin, MD, who is the Norman Cousins Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA's Semel Institute for Neuroscience and the co-director of UCLA's Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology. Irwin's team studied 112 healthy adults aged 59-86 (average age: 70) for about six months. First, the researchers split participants into two groups. One group took tai chi classes three times a week for 16 weeks. Each class lasted 40 minutes and included a set of 20 tai chi exercises. The other group took a health education class -- with no tai chi lessons -- for the same amount of time.

Immune System Test

After the 16-week programs ended, the researchers gave all participants a single shot of Varivax, a vaccine that targets the varicella zoster virus that causes chickenpox and shingles.
Participants had already had chickenpox earlier in life. The vaccine just served as a way to test their immune systems.

Over the next nine weeks, participants periodically had their blood tested to check for antibodies against the virus.

Those who had taken the tai chi classes mounted a stronger immune system response to the vaccine than those in the health education class.

By the end of the 25-week study, the tai chi students' immune system response was nearly twice that of the health education students.

Tai Chi a Vaccine Booster?

"These are exciting findings," Irwin says in a UCLA news release. He notes that age often dims the immune system response to vaccines.

The study "suggests that tai chi is an approach that might complement and augment the efficacy of other vaccines," such as the influenza vaccine, Irwin says.

Tai chi isn't just about working your muscles. Its slow, graceful movements also have a meditative aspect. It's not clear which aspects of tai chi were most helpful to participants in the study.

The report appears in the April edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

ABSTRACT:

Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
Volume 55 Issue 4 Page 511 - April 2007

To cite this article:

Michael R. Irwin MD, Richard Olmstead PhD, Michael N. Oxman MD (2007)
Augmenting Immune Responses to Varicella Zoster Virus in Older Adults: A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Tai Chi
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 55 (4), 511–517.
doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01109.x

APA citation:

Irwin, M. R., Olmstead, R., Oxman, M. N. (2007) Augmenting Immune Responses to Varicella Zoster Virus in Older Adults: A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Tai Chi
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 55 (4), 511–517. doi:10.1111/j.1532-5415.2007.01109.x

Augmenting Immune Responses to Varicella Zoster Virus in Older Adults: A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Tai Chi
Michael R. Irwin, MD**Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; , Richard Olmstead, PhD**Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; , and Michael N. Oxman, MDDepartment of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California; and San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Diego, California.*Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, California; and San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, San Diego, California.
Address correspondence to Michael R. Irwin, MD, Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, 300 UCLA Medical Plaza, Room 3130, Los Angeles, CA 90095. E-mail: mirwin1@ucla.edu

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effects of a behavioral intervention, Tai Chi, on resting and vaccine-stimulated levels of cell-mediated immunity (CMI) to varicella zoster virus (VZV) and on health functioning in older adults.

DESIGN: A prospective, randomized, controlled trial with allocation to two arms (Tai Chi and health education) for 25 weeks. After 16 weeks of intervention, subjects were vaccinated with VARIVAX, the live attenuated Oka/Merck VZV vaccine licensed to prevent varicella.

SETTING: Two urban U.S. communities between 2001 and 2005.

PARTICIPANTS: A total of 112 healthy older adults aged 59 to 86.

MEASUREMENTS: The primary endpoint was a quantitative measure of VZV-CMI. Secondary outcomes were scores on the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36).

RESULTS: The Tai Chi group showed higher levels of VZV-CMI than the health education group (P<.05), with a significant rate of increase (P<.001) that was nearly twice that found in the health education group. Tai Chi alone induced an increase in VZV-CMI that was comparable in magnitude with that induced by varicella vaccine, and the two were additive; Tai Chi, together with vaccine, produced a substantially higher level of VZV-CMI than vaccine alone. The Tai Chi group also showed significant improvements in SF-36 scores for physical functioning, bodily pain, vitality, and mental health (P<.05).

CONCLUSION: Tai Chi augments resting levels of VZV-specific CMI and boosts VZV-CMI of the varicella vaccine.