Substantial data have shown that with the increase of age, the organism degrades gradually and aging causes diseases, which in turn accelerates the aging process, forming a vicious cycle. It is advisable in the anti-aging research to combine intimately the anti-aging methods with the procedures for prevention and treatment of the geriatric diseases. Since 1958 We have focused on a research of qigong for the prevention and treatment of geriatric diseases and anti-aging process. Here is a preliminary report.
1. 204 hypertension patients were randomly divided into the qigong group (qigong with small dosage of anti-hypertension drugs, N= 104) and the control group (with small dosage of anti-hypertension drugs only, N= 100), there is a comparability in age, sex, occupation, duration and stage of disease, blood pressure levels, program and directions for drug administration between two groups. After a period of 20 years, follow-up results were as follows (I) . The effective rates in the qigong and the control groups were 85.00-90.20% and 66.67--69.07% respectively (P<0.05--0.001) . (2) During the period of 20 years, accumulative mortality rate in the qigong group was 17.31%, its stroke mortality rate was 11.54%, while in the control group, they were 32.00% and 23.00% respectively. Both rates in the qigong group were much lower than that in the control group (P<0.05--0.001) . (3) 20 years follow-up showed that the blood pressure levels gradually rose in the control group, while it was relatively stable in the qigong group ( 4 ) When hypertension was controlled, various accompanying geriatric diseases (e.g. coronary heart disease and diabetes) and aging manifestation were relieved. These results indicate that qigong is an effective measure for preventing and treating geriatric diseases, and anti-aging process.
2. With the application of the bio-cybernetic principle and method of a computer analysis, the EEG of 220 subjects was made. All the subjects were divided into four groups 83 healthy adults, 42 healthy aged, 33 hypertensive patients practising qigong and 62 hypertensive patients who didn't practise qigong. Analysis indexes included height and width of low frequency power spectrum, high power spectrum of Q band, frequency shift of power spectrum peak of alpha band(a band) and amplitude smoothing of transfer function. Experiment showed that the incidence of abnormal indexes in the aged group was higher than that in the adult group, while the incidence of abnormal indexes in the hypertensive group was the highest in the aged group. In the hypertensive group, the incidence of abnormal indexes of EEG information was 40.3%, 48.4%, 19.4% and 41.9% respectively, while in the qigong group. they were 27.3 %, 30.0 %, 0% and 33.3 %, respectively. The above results indicate that qigong plays a major role in the improvement of the brain function of the hypertensive aged patients.
3. Abnormality of sex hormones was an important cause in diseases and aging process.
(l) The concentration of estradiol and estradiol (E2) /testosterone (T) ratio in the plasma of 70 male patients with hypertension was higher than those of the healthy male subjects. These patients were allocated to the qigong (N-42) and control groups (N=28) .
After one year treatment, E levels, E2/T ratio in plasma of patients in the qigong group decreased 22.41±4.14 (pg/ml) and 4.83±1.28 (x 10[power -3] ) respectively, whereas there was no significant change in the control group.
(2) Female aging process was associated with failure of the ovarian function manifested by decreased estradiol and testosterone levels.
The levels of sex hormones in plasma were measured in 22 menopaused female patients with hypertension. After one year treatment, the decreased concentration of E2 and T was elevated and values determined were 51.6±3.5 (pg/ml) and 37.2±2.2 (ng/dl) respectively.
These results suggest that qigong can regulate the abnormal sex hormones though the patterns in males and females are somewhat opposite. Qigong can nourish the essence of life, reinforce the kidney and delay aging process.
4. From the theory of TCM, premature aging is mainly due to the imbalance of yin and yang. According to the physiological function and the nature of two-direction regulation of cAMP and cGMP, there is an internal relation between cyclic nucleotides changes and yin and yan deficiency. The level of plasma cAMP in the yin-deficiency group was elevated,
while in the yang-deficiency group the level of plasma cGMP was elevated and cAMP/CGMP ratio was decreased.
70 hypertensive patients were divided into yin-deficiency (N = 32) and yang-deficiency (N=38) types based on traditional Chinese medical classification. Each of the two types was subdivided into the qigong and control group. After one year of qigong practice, the elevated cAMP level tended to decrease in the yin-deficiency patients, while the elevated cGMP also tended to decrease and the lowered cAMP/cGMP ratio tended to rise in the yang-deficiency patients, whereas, a significant change could be seen in the two control groups. These results suggest that qigong can correct both yin deficiency and yang deficiency syndromes and provide a scientific basis for the theories of traditional Chinese medicine.
The above study indicates that qigong is an effective measure in preventing, treating geriatric diseases and delay the aging process.
