Good dancing for heart patients

Regular jumping helps improve health, especially heart function, in people with long-term heart disease. Italian scientists say, the benefits that this dance brings are sometimes greater than aerobic exercise.

" The dances, especially the waltz, with continuous movements, are like aerobic movements ," advanced

(Photo: flickr.com) Louis E. Teichholz, head of cardiology at Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack (Italy), affirmed.

Louis E. Teichholz and colleagues tracked 110 patients with chronic heart disease, including 89 men. Their average age is 59.

Scientists randomly divided 110 people into 3 groups, then assigned an aerobic exercise group 3 sessions a week for 8 weeks. The second group is taught to dance with the same frequency and time as the other group. In each training session, the volunteers have to dance alternately slow valve movements (5 minutes) with quick valves (3 minutes) continuously for 21 minutes to take breaks. The third group did not practice aerobic and did not learn to dance.

After 8 weeks, the team found health, especially cardiac function, significantly increased in the aerobic and aerobic study groups. Meanwhile, the health and mental situation in the third group has not changed.

Oxygen consumption increased by 16% in aerobic practitioners and 18% in people practicing dance. The likelihood of cardiac contraction increased by an average of 18% in the aerobic exercise group and 19% in the valve exercise group. The most noticeable point is that the vasodilatation in the dance group is many times higher than the other group.

Overall, follow-up results, the health and spirit of the dance group improved more than the aerobic exercise group. Also, dancing is very safe; no one in the study group asked to withdraw from the study due to health or injury reasons.

" In terms of movements, I don't think dance is better than aerobic, " Teichholz said. " The biggest difference is that people who practice dance feel happier when they swing their bodies to the music ."

Viet Linh