Is Tai Chi a way to keep us young?

Getting old is not nice – but think of the alternative!

I think it was Woody Allen who said something to that extent. But there is a third way, at least this is waht Tai Chi advocates want us to believe.

Utilizing a hybrid design, this study aimed to test whether both long-term and short-term Tai Chi (TC) training are associated with age-related decline in physical function in healthy older adults.

The authors first conducted cross-sectional comparisons among TC-naïve older adults (n = 60, 64.2 ± 7.7 years), TC-expert older adults (n = 27, 62.8 ± 7.6 years, 24.5 ± 12 years experience), and TC-naïve younger adults (n = 15, 28.7 ± 3.2 years) to inform long-term effects of TC training on physical function, including single leg stance time with eyes closed, grip strength, Timed Up and Go, maximum walking speed, functional reach, and vertical jump for lower-extremity power. There were significant differences among the three groups on all the six tests. For most functional tests, TC-experts performed better than age-matched TC-naïve controls and were statistically indistinguishable from young healthy adult controls. Long-term TC training was associated with higher levels of physical function in older adults, suggesting a potential preventative healthy aging effect.

In the randomized longitudinal trial, TC-naïve subjects were randomized (n = 31 to Tai Chi group, n = 29 to usual care control group) to evaluate the short-term effects of TC over 6 months on all outcomes. TC’s short-term impacts on physical function were small and not statistically significant. The impact of short-term training in healthy adults is less clear.

The authors concluded that both potential longer-term preventive effects and shorter-term restorative effects warrant further research with rigorous, adequately powered controlled clinical trials.

Even though the authors imply that their cross-sectional comparison points to a causal effect, this is clearly not true. For instance, it could easily be that people who are somehow destined to keep fit and agile are the ones who keep up Tai Chi. So, rather than being the result of Tai Chi, the proneness to fitness and agility could be the cause for doing Tai Chi.

The authors laudably were aware of these problems and therefore also did an RCT. Sadly this RCT did not yield significant findings. Essentially this means that eitherTai Chi did not work, or the study was naively inadequate, e.g. too small and too short-term.

Thus the authors finish with the usual statement that MORE RESEARCH IS NEEDED. This might be true, but is a definitive RCT likely?

I don’t think so.

A long time ago I had designed such a definitive study. It needed to be very large considering that many participants might drop out. Crucially, it also had to be long- term, i.e. years, not months.

And what happened to my study?

I never managed to get it funded, mainly because the costs would have been astronomical.