AIM: To investigate revised Baduanjin's healthy effect on delaying the intellectual aging, and compare with the effect of general morning exercise in old people. METHODS: (1) A total of 42 healthy old men aged from 61 to 65 years and 71 healthy old women aged from 56 to 60 years, residents of Fengtai district in Beijing, were selected from March to August in 2006 as subjects, with their informed consents. They matched each other in gender, age, height, education length and body weight, who were divided into two groups: train group (n = 58) and control group (n = 55). People in train group exercised revised Baduanjin regularly for 6 months (comprising modern medicine theory and traditional Baduanjin), 5 to 7 times/week, 1 hour/time. While no exercise was given in control group. (2) Intelligence physiological age was measured at the beginning, after 3 months and 6 months of experiment. The test of intelligence physiological age included mental arithmetic, digit symbol, reaction time, count, digit width, tracking manipulation and nonsense figure recognition. The former four items were consisted of 10 subtests, in which the mean time, variance and error number of complete test were calculated respectively. And shorter time indicated younger intelligence physiological age. The latter three items were used to determine the number of randomized digit memory, error manipulation of tracking a sine curve by both hands, and the memory conservation of nonsense figure recognition. And more memory conservation and less error manipulation indicated younger intelligence physiological age. (3) Statistical method adopted multivariate analysis of variance. RESULTS: All 113 old subjects were involved in the result analysis. (1) The changing values of mental arithmetic, digit symbol, count and intelligence physiological age were significantly different between the men train group and control group after 3 months (F = 9.23 to 69.06, p < 0.01), and those of mental arithmetic, digit symbol, count, tracking manipulation and intelligence physiological age were also significantly different between the women train group and control group (F = 3.90 to 50.92, p < 0.05 to 0.01). (2) Compared with the control group, all the index in test of intelligence physiological age except digit width were different obviously in men train group after 6 months (F = 5.28 to 34.46, p < 0.05 to 0.01). Moreover, those of mental arithmetic, count, tracking manipulation and intelligence physiological age were also different significantly in women train group (F = 5.28 to 36.20, p < 0.05 to 0.01). (3) Six months during the phase of experiment, intelligence physiological age of men and women increased respectively 2.75 +/- 1.22 and 4.60 +/- 1.60 months in train group, which were lower than that in control group (6.48 +/- 2.74, 7.61 +/- 1.62 months, F = 34.46, 36.20, p = 0.000). CONCLUSION: The regular exercise of Baduanjin can delay aging of intelligence in the old people.

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