UniSA research looks at exercise and the healthy heart

UniSA researchers at the Nutritional Physiology Research Centre are about to embark on a new research project to look at heart health and risk factors involved in exercise.

Research project coordinator Dr Narelle Berry says statistics from the National Heart Foundation show that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in Australia – killing one Australian every 10 minutes.

“There are a lot of recommendations and guidelines for reducing the risk of developing heart disease that cut across the kind of diet you have, the amount of exercise you do and other factors,” Dr Berry says.

“Regular exercise is part for the regime for a healthy heart but for people who already have elevated blood pressure, there may be an increased risk of suffering an acute cardiovascular event while they are actually performing the exercise due to exaggerated acute exercise-induced increases in blood pressure.

“We want to investigate whether the ability of a person’s blood vessels to dilate influences their blood pressure response during exercise.”

Dr Berry says it is well established that factors such as being overweight or having high blood pressure can lead to impaired dilatory function of blood vessels, but the role of impaired blood vessel dilatory function in regulating the blood pressure response to exercise is less clear.

“If we can assess the importance of impaired dilatory function, there are nutrients available that can improve blood vessel dilatory function and may therefore be used to reduce the large increases in blood pressure during exercise which occur in some people,” she said.

“If we can get a thorough scientific assessment of the relationship between dilatory function in blood vessels and blood pressure regulation, we may be able to improve the overall safety and benefit of regular exercise for people who are at risk of abnormally large increases in blood pressure.”

The researchers are looking for volunteers for the project. Volunteers will be asked to undergo assessments of blood vessel dilatory function and blood pressure assessment during a short series of exercise tests.

Volunteers should be aged over 30 years with either normal weight and normal blood pressure, or people who are overweight with elevated blood pressure. They must be otherwise healthy and not taking blood pressure medication.

Anyone who fits the criteria and would like to find out more about their blood pressure by participating in the study can telephone Danwin Chan on 8302 2680 or email  and leave their details.

(Source: University of South Australia: July 2008)