BOSTON, (Reuters) – The slow, flowing movements of  tai chi are better for relieving pain and other symptoms of  fibromyalgia than conventional stretching exercises, doctors  reported yesterday.

The improvements continued throughout the three months of  lessons for 33 volunteers receiving the movement and breathing  exercises, study leader Dr. Chenchen Wang of the Tufts  University School of Medicine in Boston said in a telephone  interview.

“Week by week they changed. The pain and depression  improved, and a lot of people were depressed,” said Wang, whose  study is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“They feel better. People said it changed their life. Only  two or three feel it didn’t help.”

Although they said the study should be repeated with a  larger group to see if, for example, the enthusiasm of the  instructor played a role, Dr. Gloria Yeh and her colleagues at  Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said it might be  time to give tai chi a chance.

“Aside from reductions in pain, patients in the tai chi  group reported improvements in mood, quality of life, sleep,  self-efficacy and exercise capacity,” Yeh’s team wrote in a  commentary in the same journal.

“The potential efficacy and lack of adverse effects now  make it reasonable for physicians to support patients’ interest  in exploring these types of exercises, even if it is too early  to take out a prescription pad and write ‘tai chi,’“ they  wrote.

Fibromyalgia, which may affect 200 million people  worldwide, is difficult to diagnose and hard to treat, with no  clear guidelines for symptoms that include pain, fatigue,  stiffness and sleep difficulties.

There is evidence that it may be caused by a heightened  sensitivity to pain.

Patients often turn to alternative therapies such as tai  chi, yoga, acupuncture or massage.

Tai chi originated as a Chinese martial art that focuses on  slow, graceful movements, breathing and relaxation in an effort  to move a hypothetical energy throughout the body.

Volunteers in the tai chi group took 60-minute classes  twice a week for three months from a tai chi master and were  encouraged to practice at least 20 minutes per day.

Another group got health lectures and stretching classes,  comparable to what people do when they wake up in the morning.  “This was not real exercise,” Wang said. Further tests  comparing exercise to tai chi are planned.

To assess the effectiveness of both treatments, the Wang  team used several assessment tools, including one that measured  fibromyalgia symptoms on a 100-point scale. The people taking  tai chi saw their scores improve by an average of 28 points,  compared to a nine-point improvement in the stretching group.

Researchers should test the technique with a larger group  for a longer period, compare different styles, and see if it is  better than other forms of exercise, such as yoga, Yeh said.