Author: Peter M Wayne1, Andrew Ahn1, Janet Clark2, Michael R Irwin3,4, Jian Kong5, Helen Lavretsky4, Fuzhong Li6, Brad Manor7, Wolf Mehling8, Byeongsang Oh9, Daniel Seitz10, Ahmed Tawakol11, William W N Tsang12, Chenchen Wang13, Albert Yeung5, Gloria Y Yeh1,14
Affiliation:
1 Osher Center for Integrative Health, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
2 Office of Patient Centered Care and Cultural Transformation Veterans Health Administration, Veterans Health Administration, Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
3 Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology, Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (University of California), Los Angeles, California, USA.
4 Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA.
5 Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, Massachusetts, USA.
6 Oregon Research Institute, Springfield, Oregon, USA.
7 Hinda and Arthur Marcus Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
8 Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
9 Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
10 Council on Naturopathic Medical Education, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA.
11 Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center, Cardiology Division, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
12 Department of Physiotherapy, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Hong Kong, China.
13 Center For Complementary and Integrative Medicine, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
14 Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Conference/Journal: J Integr Complement Med
Date published: 2025 Mar 17
Other:
Special Notes: doi: 10.1089/jicm.2024.0957. , Word Count: 194
The emerging paradigm of whole person health shares many core principles with traditional complementary and integrative health frameworks, including Tai Chi and qigong (TCQ). In the Fall of 2023, the Harvard Medical School Osher Center for Integrative Health hosted the inaugural international conference on The Science of Tai Chi for Whole Person Health: Advancing the Integration of Mind-Body Practices into Contemporary Health Care held at Harvard Medical School. A two-part white paper was written to summarize key conference topics, findings, and issues. Part I presented here summarizes the rationale for the conference and synthesizes the state of evidence for TCQ as rehabilitative and preventive tools for a range of clinical conditions, including falls and balance, cognition, mental health, sleep, cardiorespiratory health, musculoskeletal health, cancer, as well as translational evidence related to the neurophysiology, brain and immune function, and biomarkers of inflammation. The state of science of TCQ, viewed through the lens of traditional East Asian health constructs, is also discussed. Part II of this white paper outlines evidence gaps and opportunities and discusses strategies to address challenges in TCQ research, dissemination, and implementation.
Keywords: integrative health; mind–body; movement; whole person health.
PMID: 40091656 DOI: 10.1089/jicm.2024.0957