Qigong Institute

Complexity-Based Measures of Heart Rate Dynamics in Older Adults Following Long- and Short-Term Tai Chi Training: Cross-sectional and Randomized Trial Studies.

Author: Ma Y¹, Wu CW², Peng CK³, Ahn A⁴, Bertisch SM⁵, Lipsitz LA^6,⁷, Yeh GY^4,⁸, Manor B^6,⁷, Novak V⁹, Hausdorff JM^10,^11,¹², Gow B^3,⁸, Wayne PM⁸
Affiliation:
¹Division of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Biotechnology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States. dr.yan.ma@gmail.com.
²National Taiwan Normal University, Department of Mechatronic Engineering, Taipei, Taiwan.
³Division of Interdisciplinary Medicine and Biotechnology, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁴Division of General Medicine and Primary Care, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁵Department of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁶Division of Gerontology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁷Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, Roslindale, MA, United States.
⁸Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
⁹Department of Neurology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States.
¹⁰Center for the Study of Movement, Cognition, and Mobility, Neurological Institute, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.
¹¹Department of Physical Therapy, Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
¹²Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center and Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Conference/Journal: Sci Rep.
Date published: 2019 May 16
Other: Volume ID: 9 , Issue ID: 1 , Pages: 7500 , Special Notes: doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-43602-y. , Word Count: 207

Measures characterizing the complexity of heart rate (HR) dynamics have been informative in predicting age- and disease-related decline in cardiovascular health, but few studies have evaluated whether mind-body exercise can impact HR complexity. This study evaluated the effects of long-term Tai Chi (TC) practice on the complexity of HR dynamics using an observational comparison of TC experts and age- and gender-matched TC-naïve individuals. Shorter-term effects of TC were assessed by randomly assigning TC-naïve participants to either TC group to receive six months of TC training or to a waitlist control group. 23 TC experts (age = 63.3 ± 8.0 y; 24.6 ± 12.0 y TC experience) and 52 TC-naïve (age = 64.3 ± 7.7 y) were enrolled. In cross-sectional analyses, TC experts had a higher overall complexity index (CI, p = 0.004) and higher entropy at multiple individual time scales (p < 0.05); these findings persisted in models accounting for age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and physical activity levels. Longitudinal changes in complexity index did not differ significantly following random assignment to six months of TC vs. a waitlist control; however, within the TC group, complexity at select time scales showed statistically non-significant trends toward increases. Our study supports that longer-term TC mind-body training may be associated with increased complexity of HR dynamics.

PMID: 31097732 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-43602-y

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Complexity-Based Measures of Heart Rate Dynamics in Older Adults Following Long- and Short-Term Tai Chi Training: Cross-sectional and Randomized Trial Studies.