Raymond McBride, Author At Healthy News

Morning exercise linked to lowest risk

A new study investigates the potential effect of exercising at different times for preventing cardiovascular disease and stroke.
The study finds that people who exercise in the morning achieve the greatest reduction in risk. This is particularly true for women.
The best time of day to exercise may be around 11 a.m. according to the study.

Although exercise is always generally good for health, a large new prospective study finds that one particular time of day may offer the greatest benefit when it comes to lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke.

The study found that physical activity in the morning, between 8 and 11 a.m., had the greatest positive effect on a person’s risk of CVD and stroke compared to activity at other times of day.

The association applied equally to individuals who described themselves as morning or evening people.

The study authors also found that people who exercised both early and late in the morning — versus mid-morning — derived the greatest benefit.

Dr. Paul Arciero, professor in the Human Physiological Sciences Department at Skidmore College in Sarasota Springs, NY, explained why the study is so persuasive:

“This is the largest prospective study to date in more than 86,000 participants, over a six-year follow-up period, examining the effects of exercise time of day, or ‘chronoactivity,’ on cardiovascular disease [heart attack and stroke] risk.”

“I think this study does a great job of trying to tackle a few of the biggest challenges in physical activity intervention research,” Dr. Asad R. Siddiqi commented to Medical News Today. “Namely, [the] scale of study, generalizability, and follow-up interval.”

Dr. Siddiqi is a sports medicine and rehabilitation expert at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian in New York. Neither he nor Dr. Arciero were involved in the study.

The study appears in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

The researchers analyzed data from 86,657 individuals in the UK Biobank. Their average age was 62, and they ranged in age from 42 to 78. The majority of individuals, 58{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}, were women. Accelerometers recorded participants’ physical activity over a period of 7 days.

Dr. Siddiqi expressed some concern about the study’s fitness tracking, noting that “[t]he participants were followed for only 7 days, and in a manner that involved an ‘intervention’ — wearing an accelerometer, which they otherwise may not do — and we always need to be cognizant of how these interventions affect participant behavior, i.e., the Hawthorne Effect.”

“The real question is whether a 1-week tracking period is a fair representation of habits throughout the 6 to 8-year follow-up period,” he said.

Dr. Arciero, however, did not consider this a problem, saying that “[b]ased on a previous research study, a 7-day physical activity accelerometer measurement is considered a representative time period to assess a person’s overall physical activity level.”

The lead author of the study is Dr. Gali Albalak of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Even though people’s activity could have changed over time, she told MNT, the accelerometer data “enables objective measurement of physical activity without any recall or other forms of bias that play a role in questionnaire-based physical activity information.”

In any event, added Dr. Siddiqi, “[i]n general, given that the study population was largely middle-age[d] to older adults with presumable ‘formed’ behavioral habits and patterns, there isn’t a strong suggestion that these habits would change significantly over the follow-up period.”

After 6 years, 2,911 study participants developed coronary artery disease (CAD), and 796 participants had had a stroke.

Overall, people who exercised at 11 a.m. were 16{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} less likely to develop CAD, and 17{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} less likely to have a first stroke of any kind. They were also 21{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} less likely to have a first ischemic stroke, compared to the study’s reference group.

People who exercised early in the morning lowered their CAD risk by 11{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}.

When the researchers tabulated women and men separately, it turned out that women benefited considerably more from morning exercise. By itself, the benefit of morning exercise for men was not statistically significant.

Women who exercised in the early or late morning reduced their risk of CAD by 22{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} and 24{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}, respectively.

“In support of this large prospective study,” added Dr. Arciero, “a recent 3-month exercise intervention study published from our laboratory with a group of middle-aged, healthy-weight women and men showed that women exercising in the morning reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure to a significantly greater amount (-10{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} vs. -3{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}) compared to women exercising in the evening.”

“Thus, our data also supports morning exercise in women to improve cardiovascular health, and therefore lower incident risk for CVD,” he argued.

Dr. Albalak noted: “We were not able to explain this difference in our finding[s]. One of the possible explanations could be that the etiology of cardiovascular disease is different in men and women.”

“So, more research is needed,” said Dr. Albalak, “before we can make any recommendations for men or women. However, we see our research as a first step in the right direction.”

Dr. Albalak noted that “[a]s this was an observation[al] study, we cannot say anything about the causal effect of physical activity timing on our [cardiovascular] health.” Still, she pointed out that the study’s findings align with her group’s previous work.

“We already were able to identify that morning physical activity was associated with metabolic health — BMI, glucose levels, and insulin resistance — in a group of 207 healthy but sedentary older adults,” she said.

“Also, physical activity is, just like food intake and exposure to light, an important ‘Zeitgeber,’ or circadian clock trigger,” said Dr. Albalak.

“This means that with these behavioral aspects, we can calibrate our biological clock and the circadian rhythms with each other and our environment [day and night cycle of the earth],” she added.

“From other research, we know that eating after 8 p.m. or exposing ourselves to bright light at night can have detrimental effects on our biological clock. We hypothesize that being physically active in the morning is the most appropriate timing to correctly set your clock.”

Dr. Siddiqi noted:

“For the majority of people, we are simply trying to introduce the habit of physical activity, and so any time of day is better than nothing. As a general rule, though, I try to make exercise promotion simple and flexible to increase adoption, recognizing that timing of exercise is a fine adjustment that has practical aspects and limitations.”

Healthy Lifestyle for College Students MyrtleBeachSC News

While in college, students face various daily challenges of school, family obligations, and work, and most students tend to develop unhealthy lifestyles.

Since it is the first time most college students have lived independently and in charge of their own lives, it can be overwhelming & difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle amidst the series of daily dramatic changes.

Regardless of how busy you might be, you must create a fair balance to help you pursue healthy living. A healthy lifestyle is crucial to every student’s physical, emotional and mental stability. Below are a few tips to help keep your body in check;

Eat healthy meals regularly
Quit procrastinating
Keep track of your diet
Prioritize rest and sleep
Regular health check-ups
Exercise frequently

Eat healthy meals regularly.

As a student, it is possible to forget to eat a meal when trying to meet up with different deadlines. However, it can harm your body and brain as it will lack the nutrients to function. To have a healthy lifestyle as a college student, you must adjust your schedule so you can eat at least three times daily without worrying about missing class.

When selecting the food to eat, it’s necessary to consider the quality of the food carefully. Make sure to eat minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods regularly. Include food rich in protein content, vitamins, and healthy fat in your diet that can provide long-lasting energy to get on with daily activities.

You should also eat veggies and fruits regularly to boost your diet and lifestyle. Developing a habit of drinking a lot of water will be very helpful to you. It is very beneficial to your health as it prevents heartburn and other health complications.

If your tight schedule is going to stop you from eating healthy meals regularly, you can search for the best website to buy an essay UK has. Their team of professional writers delivers unique and plagiarism-free essays to college students. Ordering your essay online can also help boost your grades.

Quit procrastinating

Another key to a healthy student lifestyle is to avoid any form of procrastination. College students face many projects, assignments, and coursework that might catch up with them if they procrastinate.

Most students hire a reliable assignment writing service to help complete their academic tasks. This writing agency employs qualified and experienced writers to produce top-quality content at very affordable prices.

Keep track of your diet.

Eating mindlessly can leave a long-lasting negative toll on your health. To enjoy a healthy lifestyle, you must keep track of everything that passes through your mouth and cut off every unhealthy eating pattern. Avoid eating late at night. It will harm your health. It’s also advisable to avoid eating while studying.

Being a college student, you have easy access to different tasty foods and snacks, so you need to learn how to say no to avoid health complications. Avoid eating excessively, especially at night.

Prioritize rest and sleep

Every person needs proper rest for the brain and body to function optimally, let alone college students facing different challenges daily. Adequate rest and sleep give you enough energy and rejuvenation to work efficiently throughout the day. To get that adequate rest, you need to invest in comfortable bedding that will make you sleep well.

To keep your stress levels low, you need to create and stick to an effective sleep schedule. This makes you feel energized for each day. In case you find it difficult to sleep, quit using your phone or computer for about 30 minutes before your scheduled sleeping time.

You can even take a vacation to places like Mexico, which will relieve you of your academic stress. The golden sandy beaches, magnificent rivers, and indigenous cuisine in Mexico help most college students feel alive and re-energized.

Regular health check-ups

In case there is any lingering illness in your body that you are unaware of, regular health check-ups help you detect and prevent the worsening of the illness.

If you find out that you are ill, you need to recuperate, and to do that, you will need to entrust your academic tasks to a legit & reliable essay writing service. They will deliver every essay or project within the set deadline, even the urgent ones; their prices are affordable and budget-friendly.

Exercise frequently

Another important factor in having a healthy student lifestyle is frequent exercise. To reduce your stress levels, you need to engage in vigorous & muscle-strengthening activities at least thrice weekly. Your daily routine should include exercise.

To have a healthy student lifestyle free from health issues, you need to avoid drug intake and extravagant drinking of alcohol, as these substances can hinder you from functioning optimally.

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people’s health cannot be held hostage

This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine.

The devastating energy crisis, the deepening mental health emergency, constraints on humanitarian access and the risk of viral infections will make this winter a formidable test for the Ukrainian health system and the Ukrainian people, but also for the world and its commitment to support Ukraine.

The country is facing a therma-crisis on top of a perma-crisis brought on by the war and the pandemic.

Half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is either damaged or destroyed. This is already having knock-on effects on the health system and on people’s health.

Put simply, this winter will be about survival.

WHO has so far verified 703 attacks on health since the war began 9 months ago. This is a breach of international humanitarian law and the rules of war.

Continued attacks on health and energy infrastructure mean hundreds of hospitals and health-care facilities are no longer fully operational – lacking fuel, water and electricity to meet basic needs.

Maternity wards need incubators; blood banks need refrigerators; intensive care beds need ventilators; and all require energy.

To focus the world’s attention on this situation is why I am here on my 4th visit this year and just days after the largest wave of missile strikes across the country – to meet officials, health workers and patients and offer WHO’s unwavering support to the Ministry of Health, to the government and to the Ukrainian people.

And to express my gratitude and respect for Ukraine’s doctors, nurses and other health workers, who continue to show their heroism.

What we know is that hundreds of thousands of premises across the country – including private homes, schools and hospitals – have no gas supplies, essential not only for cooking but also for heating.

Today, 10 million people – a quarter of the population – are without power.

Temperatures are predicted to plummet as low as -20 ˚C in parts of the country.

As desperate families try to stay warm, many will be forced to turn to alternative heating methods, like burning charcoal or wood, or using generators fuelled by diesel, or electric heaters. These bring health risks, including exposure to toxic substances that are harmful for children, older people and those with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, as well as accidental burns and injuries.

We expect 2–3 million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety. They will face unique health challenges, including respiratory infections such as COVID-19, pneumonia and influenza, and the serious risk of diphtheria and measles in under-vaccinated populations.

All of this is taking its toll on the mental health of Ukrainians. This week, the war enters its 9th month, and already some 10 million people are at risk of mental disorders such as acute stress, anxiety, depression, substance use and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

By training health-care workers on how to provide mental health services, WHO has so far reached 1400 people with severe mental health conditions across Ukraine.

Tens of thousands of psychosocial support and mental health consultations have been held for health-care workers and the general public, including by mobile mental health teams who go out to the community to offer care. This wouldn’t be possible without the tireless support of the First Lady, Her Excellency Ms Olena Zelenska, whom I thank for our meeting earlier today.

I have also met with the Prime Minister, His Excellency Mr Denys Shmyhal, and the Minister of Health, Mr Viktor Liashko, with whom I discussed energy supply, preparing for the winter, and perhaps most crucially, meeting critical health needs in both newly regained and occupied areas.

And this brings me to my next point – humanitarian access.

The war has impacted both access to health-care and supply lines for the flow of humanitarian aid. Ukraine needs sustained resources to see the health system through the winter and beyond, points that will be high on the agenda at next month’s Ukraine Conference in Paris, under the leadership of President Macron and President Zelenskyy.

I am very concerned for 17 000 HIV patients in Donetsk, who may soon run out of critical antiretroviral drugs that help keep them alive. I am urgently calling for the creation of a humanitarian health corridor into all newly regained and occupied areas. WHO and our partners are ready to mobilize at a moment’s notice.

I reiterate my call on both parties to allow urgent humanitarian access to meet people’s health needs.

Access to health care cannot be held hostage.

Finally, let’s not forget that people are more likely to acquire viral respiratory infections in the winter than other seasons. Like in the rest of Europe, the many sub-variants of Omicron are also circulating in Ukraine. However, with low basic vaccination rates, let alone boosters, millions of Ukrainians have waning or no immunity to COVID-19. Couple that with an expected surge in seasonal influenza and difficulties in accessing health services, and this could spell disaster for vulnerable people.

We are helping Ukraine’s health system prepare for the winter. This includes emergency repairs to health facilities and heating infrastructure, and energy maintenance.

We are also providing prefabricated structures in newly regained areas, portable heating devices with fuel, survival blankets, diesel generators and ambulances.

Ukraine’s health system is facing its darkest days in the war so far. Having endured more than 700 attacks, it is now also a victim of the energy crisis. It is being squeezed from all sides and the ultimate casualty is the patient.

In the short term, we must find practical solutions that allow health-care services to continue through the winter as best as they can. But this is not a sustainable scenario. This war must end, before the health system and the health of the Ukrainian nation are compromised any further.

‘Game-changing’ gender quotas introduced by Australian research agency

In an attempt to achieve gender equity, Australia’s leading health and medical research funding organization plans to award half of its research grants for its largest funding programme to women and non-binary applicants, starting next year.

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) announced the move last week. It will apply to researchers at the mid-career and senior level applying for the agency’s investigator grants, which fund research and salaries. Grants will also be fixed at Aus$400,000 (US$252,000) each a year for five years. Many countries struggle to achieve gender equity in research funding, and the NHRMC will be one of the first agencies to introduce gender quotas at this scale, say researchers.

“It’s game-changing,” says Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra. The plan “directly removes a barrier that’s historically led to attrition in the research workforce and has led to the significant under-representation of women at senior levels”, she says.

“It’s a really significant step in the right direction,” says Kylie Walker, chief executive of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, a Canberra-based organization representing applied scientists and engineers. From 2015 to 2020, the number of women enrolling in undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses in Australia increased by 24{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f}, compared with a 9{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} increase in the number of men enrolling. “We need to obviously work out how to keep them,” says Walker.

Biggest gap

In 2021, 254 investigator grants were awarded, worth Aus$400 million in total. But when two researchers in Melbourne reviewed the data, they found that men had received 23{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} more of the grants, worth an extra Aus$95 million, than had women. There was an outcry from researchers. This year, the agency conducted its own review of investigator-grant outcomes from the past three years and found that the biggest gap was among the most senior researchers. A subsequent discussion paper and consultations with researchers informed the latest decision.

The NHMRC has been working for a decade to address gender inequity in its grant funding. For example, in 2017, it introduced ‘structural priority funding’, which reserves additional money — around 8{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of the overall grant budget — for high-quality ‘near-miss’ research applications led by women. This approach is also used to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander researchers

But this did not address the gender imbalance among the most established researchers. In 2021, only 20{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of the applicants in this group were women. Modelling suggested that even raising the priority-funding allocation to 20{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of the grant budget for senior researchers did not achieve parity, says Anne Kelso, chief executive of the NHMRC. “The skewing of application numbers from men versus women is so great at the upper end of the scheme that the structural priority funding doesn’t get you there,” she says.

The council will be looking to see whether awarding equal numbers of grants by gender leads to an increase in the number of senior women applying for leadership grants, says Kelso.

Skewed workforce

The gender disparities in grant applicants and recipients among senior researchers reflect disparities in the STEM workforce, says Isabelle Kingsley, a research associate at the office of the Australian government’s Women in STEM Ambassador in Sydney. She hopes the NHMRC’s policy will help women to stay in research and progress in their careers.

For early-career researchers, the NHMRC will continue with existing gender-parity measures, such as structural priority funding. Kelso says there is significantly less gender imbalance among early-career researchers. From 2019 to 2021, more applications for investigator grants at the earliest career stage came from women — who were awarded 137 grants, compared to 123 for men. “We found that we hardly needed to use any structural priority funding for the more junior levels,” she says.

Tony Kenna, president of the Australian Society for Medical Research in Brisbane, welcomes the changes, but hope this won’t be the final step. Other NHMRC grant schemes could benefit from similar reforms, he says, as could funding schemes offered by other agencies, such as the Australian Research Council.

Amazon makes a new push into health care

AS BIG tech companies face a brutal slow-down the hunt is on for new areas of expansion. Amazon, which is now America’s second-biggest business by revenue, is a case in point. In the final quarter of 2022 its sales are expected to expand by just 6.7{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} year on year. On November 17th Andy Jassy, Amazon’s chief executive, confirmed that the firm had begun laying off employees and would fire more next year. Mr Jassy said it was the most difficult decision he had made since becoming boss. But he also noted that “big opportunities” lay ahead. One that he highlighted is the largest, most lucrative and hellishly difficult businesses in America: health care.

Many tech firms have health-care ambitions. Apple tracks wellbeing through the iPhone; Microsoft offers cloud-computing services to health firms and Alphabet sells wearable devices and is pumping money into biotech research. But Amazon is now creating the most ambitious offering of all. Two days before Mr Jassy’s statement, on November 15th, it launched “Amazon Clinic”, an online service operating in 32 states that offers virtual health care for over 20 conditions, from acne to allergies. Amazon describes the new service as a virtual storefront that connects users with third-party health providers.

Amazon makes a new push into health care

The Amazon Clinic launch follows the $3.9bn takeover, announced in July, of One Medical, a primary-care provider that offers telehealth services and runs bricks-and-mortar clinics (the deal has yet to close). It has 790,000 members. The deal was led by Neil Lindsay, formerly responsible for Prime, Amazon’s subscription service, who has said health care “is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention”.

These latest moves complement Amazon’s existing assets. Its Halo band, a wearable device that went on sale in 2020, monitors the health status of users. In 2018 it bought PillPack, a digital pharmacy that is now part of Amazon Pharmacy, for $753m. Amazon Web Services launched specific cloud services for health care and life science companies in 2021.

The move into primary care, jargon for the role of the traditional family doctor, is a big step but has an obvious logic. Walgreens, a pharmacy chain, reckons the industry is worth $1trn a year. Around half of Generation Z and millennial Americans do not have a primary-care doctor and One Medical’s membership has almost doubled since 2019. Amazon Clinic will accept cash for its services, rather than relying on America’s nightmare insurance system to recoup costs.

The company is betting that primary care will become more digital. And it is likely that it will seek to integrate these services with other parts of Amazon’s health-care offering. Amazon Clinic’s new users can buy drugs from Amazon Pharmacy. Over time the firm could add a feature to the Halo band reminding users to take medicine. It might also set up clinics in branches of Whole Foods, the supermarket chain it acquired in 2017. And it may wrap health care into Prime, which now has some 200m members worldwide. “The low-hanging fruit is offering discounts on membership to Prime members,” says Daniel Grosslight of Citigroup, a bank.

Amazon’s health push comes with several risks. One is that its own record is far from flawless. It is closing Amazon Care, which it launched to provide health services for its own employees and which expanded to offer some services to outside customers. Haven—a collaboration with Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s investment firm, and JPMorgan Chase, a bank—was set up in 2018 to procure lower cost health care for employees, but died less than three years later.

Another danger is competition. cvs, an American retail pharmacy, reportedly outbid Amazon for Signify Health, a large primary-care provider in September. In October, Walgreens increased its stake in Villagemd with a $5.2bn investment. JPMorgan recently opened primary-care centres of its own. Amazon’s new venture will also compete with the likes of Ro and Hims & Hers, tech startups dedicated to providing virtual health care.

Finally, Amazon will have to grapple with regulators. The Federal Trade Commission, a trust-busting agency, is examining the One Medical deal. The takeover, and the launch of Amazon Clinic, will raise questions about who should be allowed to hold sensitive health-care data. Amazon has said “we remain focused on the important mission of protecting customers’ health information”. The firm may need to set up hefty firewalls to separate customer information held by clinics from that gathered through other products and services. But satisfying data-privacy concerns could wipe out many of the data-sharing opportunities that Amazon deftly deploys across the rest of its business.

Amazon’s attempts at disrupting health care will be subject to intense scrutiny. Nonetheless it should have a positive effect on health care in America. Its experience at keeping customers happy while generating razor-thin margins could improve primary care and force other providers to up their game. It may also prompt other tech giants to do more to disrupt health care themselves. All this may be just the medicine that America’s heath-care system—and Mr Jassy’s tenure as Amazon’s boss—badly need.■

Five questions: FSU exercise physiologist works to help individuals achieve optimal performance

Michael Ormsbee, a professor in the College of Health and Human Sciences

Professor of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology Michael Ormsbee first became interested in how the body performs as a high school athlete, an interest that blossomed into a full-time career.

As a professor and director of Florida State University’s Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine, or ISSM, he has worked with both individuals who are competing at the highest levels of athletic competition and those who are trying to improve their overall health.

He answered five questions about how he came to work in this field and his latest projects.

What first drew you to the field of exercise physiology and nutrition?

I grew up in an active household and played sports my entire life. I began training as a young teen and was always competing at the President’s Physical Fitness Tests that were held annually in middle and high school. My older brother was the same way and began to read some of the old school muscle and fitness magazines for fun. I was fortunate to then go on to college and play ice hockey. Around that time, I took an introduction to exercise physiology class as a freshman and had a professor that made me love the material and want to learn more. I was hooked.

How have your perspectives changed since you started working in the field? Or are there areas you are more interested in now as opposed to when you started?

My view has changed from a “me focused” approach to a more altruistic approach to asking research questions. I was at first, of course, interested in learning more about exercise and nutrition to improve my own personal performance on the ice or in the weight room. Later that morphed into a focus on how to help others achieve a high level of performance, be it for athletes to be bigger, faster and stronger or for the general population to be healthier, fit and happy. I suppose some of my interests shifted also to older populations as I got older too. In recent years, we have also become more focused on wearable technologies for sport, female physiology and sleep science. However, the underlying focus has always been to use nutrition and exercise to improve health, body composition and performance of any of the populations that we study.

You recently took over as director of the Institute of Sports Sciences and Medicine. What do you see as the role or mission of that institute going forward?

The vision I have for the institute is to make it the top authority in sport science, performance nutrition and sports medicine globally. We have some great momentum nationally and some collaborations internationally, but there is a need to expand our reach. In this new role, I hope to more fully incorporate interested researchers and research programs from both athletics and from medicine. We have traction in both areas, but I will be looking to expand our collaborations and reach. Simultaneously, I hope to provide improved experiences for students to not only learn about the theory of exercise and nutrition science, but to put it into practice. We are now re-opening our successful community outreach program to allow pay-for-service testing so that the community can have an “athlete experience” and get data to improve their own health such as fitness level, lactate threshold, aerobic capacity, body fat and muscle mass, or simply run on our anti-gravity treadmill.

This growth mindset will help to, first, gain visibility on campus and in our community and also open up research collaboration opportunities that did not exist before.

In addition to your work looking at how elite athletes can achieve optimal performance, you also are working on a project about how some of these principles can be applied to individuals struggling with health issues such as obesity and potentially Type 2 diabetes. Can you talk a little bit about how these different types of projects intersect or how one might help inform the other?

Yes, I have been fortunate to work with athletes, the general population and clinical populations. While these may sound like completely different research areas, they all fit under our primary umbrella of human performance nutrition research. For me, I think improving performance is equally impressive whether it is to simply take a few more steps, to be able to climb a flight of stairs, to improve body composition or translate it into actual on-field performance changes. Performance should not be limited to athletes; we all need to perform in life and at work. So, while our populations vary, our end goal is usually quite similar.

Currently we are working on projects with FSU athletes, firefighters, obese and diabetic individuals, and active older adults. What fascinates me constantly is the cross-talk between traditional medicine and sports nutrition. For example, there are a number of instances where a sports nutrition product is now used in clinical populations and vice versa. To give one example, creatine supplementation began in athletes but is now used in a plethora of clinical conditions with success. Likewise, there are modified starches that were developed for a clinical condition called glycogen storage disease that are now used by athletes.

The beauty of our work is that it is highly engaging for the scientist and is translatable for the physician, athlete or coach.

Where do you see your research going forward? Do you have any specific plans for ISSM or your personal research agenda that you’d like to share?

I am beginning to meet with other top research facilities and directors of other institutes that are similar to ours to understand what works and what does not. That will ultimately translate into an updated mission, increased collaboration with highly funded institutes or centers and improved recognition worldwide. I’m excited to bring in new faculty to the institute (we are currently hiring an assistant professor of sports nutrition) and creating more internal and external affiliates to focus on areas such as female physiology, warfighter/first responder resilience, sleep medicine, elite athletics and sports medicine.

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