Reel your way into a fit old age

SCOTTISH country dancing could be key to keeping fit in old age, a leading university has said.

Participants in a study who took part in the dancing were found to have better levels of fitness than people who did other exercises.

Dr Paul Dougall, an expert in dance and drama at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, led the research.

He said: "It's generally assumed that dancing is good exercise but we wanted to measure whether Scottish country dancing has specific health benefits."

The study focused on older women and had 70 participants - 35 women aged between 60 and 85 who practised Scottish country dancing and 35 in the same age range who took part in other forms of exercise.

The comparison between two groups who were active in different types of exercise suggested that country dancing was particularly effective at keeping people fit.

Dr Susan Dewhurst, an exercise physiologist from the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, led assessments of the participants' fitness.

She said: "We used state-of-the-art equipment to give very precise measurements of muscle quality and function."