Introduction
I practice Tai Chi and Qigong because of the way it makes me feel. I am hopeful that some of my health concerns benefit from my practice. At least this is what I am told. Tai Chi and Qigong are so often lauded for their many health benefits. So, my questions are:
- What health conditions does Tai Chi/Qigong benefit and what are the benefits,
- How strong is the Evidence,
- How long do I need to practice to reap the benefits and
- What styles of Tai Chi and Qigong work best
The Study:
Searching through the research I came across this study:
Evidence Map of Tai Chi and Qigong: Update from 2014–2024.
The full article is given at the end of the post.
Question(s) Investigated
- Does the scientific data support the claims that tai chi and qigong have beneficial effects on certain health conditions?
- How strong is the evidence?
What the Investigators looked at to answer the question(s) posed
The authors researched review studies (reviews include more than one study) of tai chi and qigong to investigate health conditions that are often claimed to benefit from tai chi and/or qigong.
Time Span: They compared data from 2014 to 2025 with earlier data.
Number of reviews analyzed: 26
Number of conditions: 21
Health Conditions included:
breast cancer, cancer, chronic low back pain, chronic mechanical neck pain, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, diabetes, falls prevention, fibromyalgia, frailty in older adults, heart failure, hypertension, insomnia, knee osteoarthritis, mild cognitive impairment (cognitive function), osteoporosis, Parkinson’s disease (cognitive function), post-stroke, rheumatoid arthritis, sarcopenia, and schizophrenia.
Findings
Results are shown in an Evidence Map below. The shapes (circle, triangle) refer to what the studies were compared with, such as usual care or placebo (Sham). The color of the shape refers to whether the group was practicing tai chi, qigong or both. The size of the shape refers to the number of review articles that showed a beneficial effect.
Only 2 reviews showed high certainty of evidence and this was for Hypertension and Osteoporosis
More than half of the 15 conditions identified were high or moderate certainty for benefit of tai chi and qigong. This was different from the last review before 2014, where tai chi or qigong had either no effect or there was unclear evidence of effect in most conditions.
What does this mean?
Compared to earlier results this data showed higher certainty of evidence for health benefits of tai chi and qigong on several adult health conditions.
The results show that there is a stronger evidence base for the use of tai chi or qigong in health care settings since 2014, at least for some health conditions.
What does this study NOT show?
- The effect of different styles of tai chi or qigong,
- the effect of duration of practice, (how long must you practice to reap the benefits)
- the long-term effects of practice,
- how tai chi and qigong work in the body to make the changes.
For an even deeper dive into the facts read the entire research paper.
Evidence Map of Tai Chi and Qigong: Update from 2014-2024 August 2025.
Yoga & Tai Chi 