Tai Chi helpful for patients with cardiovascular diseases

People living with heart disease, high blood pressure or stroke may benefit from practicing traditional Chinese exercises such as Tai Chi, showed a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

根据周三在美国心脏学会上刊登的一份研究指出，经常习练中国传统运动比如太极，对心脏病、高血压及中风患者有益。

"Traditional Chinese exercises are a low-risk, promising intervention that could be helpful in improving quality of life in patients with cardiovascular diseases — the leading cause of disability and death in the world," study author Yu Liu, dean of the School of Kinesiology at Shanghai University of Sport in China, said in a statement.

文章作者刘宇（现任上海体育学院运动科学学院院长）在一份研究中指出，心血管疾病是当今世界致残甚至致死的“头号杀手”，而中国传统运动对于改善这类疾病患者的生活质量具有低风险和积极促进作用。

"But the physical and psychological benefits to these patients of this increasingly popular form of exercise must be determined based on scientific evidence."

“但是，这种越来越流行的锻炼方式对于病人身心的益处还需要通过科学研究的证明”

In the new study, the researchers reviewed 35 research articles, which included 2,249 cardiovascular disease patients from 10 countries.

在这项新研究中，研究人员参考了35篇相关文献，涵盖来自十个国家的2249名心血管病患者。

They found Chinese exercises helped reduce the participants' systolic blood pressure, the top number, by more than 9.12 mmHg, and diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, by more than 5 mmHg on average.

研究者发现这项中国的传统运动可以使患者收缩压即高压平均降低至少9.12毫米汞柱，使患者舒张压即低压平均降低至少5毫米汞柱。

The study also revealed small, but statistically significant drops in the levels of bad cholesterol, or low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides.

研究同时发现一项细微但统计上显著的功效，太极还能降低有害胆固醇、低密度脂蛋白以及甘油三酯的含量。

Chinese exercises also seemed to improve quality of life and reduce depression in patients with cardiovascular disease, they said.

他还说，中国传统运动也有可能提高心血管疾病患者的生活质量及缓解他们的压抑情绪。

"Our systematic review results showed that TCE (traditional Chinese exercises) should be useful for patients with CVD (cardiovascular disease)," the researchers wrote in their paper.

研究人员在文章中写道，经过我们系统的研究发现，这些中国的传统运动可以使心血管疾病患者的病情得到改善。

However, traditional Chinese exercises did not significantly improve participant's heart rate, aerobic fitness level or scores on a general health questionnaire.

然而，中国的这些传统运动并不能显著得提高患者心率及心脏有氧机能，同时也不会使病人的身体状况得到明显改善。

The review only analyzed studies which randomly assigned participants to groups performing traditional Chinese exercises, most commonly Tai Chi, Qigong and Baduanjin, engaging in another form of exercise or making no change in activity level.

该研究只是对比分析了将不同参与者随机分配后，进行各种传统运动方式比如太极、轻功和八段锦，以及相同剧烈程度的其它运动方式后的结果。

Next, Liu and his team planned to conduct new randomized controlled trials to confirm the effect of different types of traditional Chinese exercises on chronic diseases.

接下来，刘宇和团队成员计划进行新的随机对照试验，以确定不同的中国传统运动形式对此类慢性病的具体功效。