It is never too late to put on your dancing shoes, say scientist who have found that regular Latin dancing such as salsa or cha cha cha may improve physical fitness in older adults, reducing their risk for developing heart disease.
Researchers at the University of Illinois in US tested whether a community-based intervention focused on Latin dancing could benefit 54 adults (about 65 years old, 80 per cent Mexican women) who were not very physically active.
They found that a four-month dance programme helped older Latino adults walk faster and improved their physical fitness.
Participants were randomly assigned to either take part in a dance programme twice a week for four months or to attend a health education programme.
All participants completed questionnaires about their leisure time physical activity and a 400-metre walk test at the start and end of the study.
After four months of twice-weekly Latin dancing, researchers found that dancers walked faster and were more physically active during their leisure time than before they started dancing.
Dancers completed a 400-metre walk in just under 392 seconds compared with almost 430 seconds at the start of the study, researchers said.
The study also found that leisure physical activity rose from 650 minutes to nearly a total of 818 minutes per week.
Those in the health education classes had a smaller improvements in their fitness - they finished the 400-metre walk in about 409 seconds at the end of the study compared with 419 seconds four months earlier; total time spent on weekly leisure physical activity increased from 522 minutes to 628 minutes over the course of the study.
The dance programme is a culturally-tailored, community-based lifestyle intervention that included four different dance styles - merengue, bachata, cha cha cha and salsa - led by the dance instructor, with more complex choreography as the program progressed.
Scaling up such a culturally-attuned, and what appears to be a fun intervention could have significant public health effects, said lead study author Priscilla Vasquez, from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
"There are many barriers older Latino adults face, and they are busy with care giving and other responsibilities, so often physical activity takes a back seat and many times the opportunities are unavailable," Vasquez said.
"I've heard participants say attending dance class is their stress relief. They also interact with others and build community. This impacts their physical as well as emotional health and wellbeing," she said.
