Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to page-level navigation Go to the Disability Resource Centre Website Go to the DRC Booking Accommodation Portal Go to the Inclusive Technology Lab Website
The University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia Okanagan campus
UBC Okanagan News
  • Research
  • People
    • Student Profile
    • Faculty Profile
    • Alumni Spotlight
  • Campus Life
    • Campus News
    • Student Life
    • Teaching & Learning
  • Community Engagement
  • About the Collection
    • Stories for Media
  • UBCO Events
  • Search All Stories
Home / 2011 / March / 16 / Top clinical journal publishes study by UBC Human Kinetics student
Health, Teaching & Learning

Top clinical journal publishes study by UBC Human Kinetics student

March 16, 2011

Chris Willie is pursuing a PhD in Human Kinetics at UBC’s Okanagan campus. His research is about to be published in one of the world's top clinical journals, Hypertension.

Chris Willie is pursuing a PhD in Human Kinetics at UBC’s Okanagan campus. His research is about to be published in one of the world's top clinical journals, Hypertension.

Chris Willie, a Human Kinetics PhD student at UBC’s Okanagan campus, is the principal author of a new study soon to appear in one of the world’s top clinical journals, Hypertension.  The study will be available online March 21.

The study, titled Neuromechanical features of the cardiac baroreflex following exercise, provides new insights into the mechanisms that control blood pressure before and following exercise in healthy people.

“The purpose of my study was to understand why, after exercise, blood pressure is decreased — it’s a relatively unexplored area,” says Willie, whose research focuses on better understanding the integrated mechanisms regulating human cerebral blood flow in health and disease.

“In the most basic definition, my research examines the relationship between blood pressure control and blood flow in the brain.”

Using state-of-the-art ultrasound technology to assess the characteristics of the carotid artery before and after exercise, Willie, along with colleagues from Harvard Medical School in Boston and Otago Medical School in New Zealand, analyzed 10 healthy individuals over three months.

“We were able to identify neural mechanisms that show the human brain actively decreases blood pressure regulation after exercise,” says Willie. “What this does is provide evidence that exercise can be used as an effective tool to help decrease high blood pressure. It also allows clinicians and scientists who study pharmaceutical treatment of blood pressure to better understand how this physiology, as well as exercise can be utilized to enhance treatment.”

Willie adds that a significant number of Canadians die from, or live with, diseases that are directly or indirectly caused by improper blood pressure regulation, ranging from heart failure to stroke.

“It is essential to better understand these processes so improved prevention options and treatments can be developed,” says Willie. “This study offers new and meaningful data which will have fairly broad implications in the long term, so to be able to publish it in a well-respected journal was definitely the goal and it’s very exciting.”

“Hypertension is the number one clinical blood pressure journal in the world. To publish in it is a really impressive feat in anyone’s career,” says Phil Ainslie, associate professor of Human Kinetics and Willie’s PhD supervisor.

Willie will continue with his research in Perth, Australia, examining the specific effects of a three-month exercise program on the regulation of brain blood flow in a healthy, older adult population with and without dementia.

— 30 —

Media Contact

Jody Jacob
E-mail: Jody.Jacob@ubc.ca

Content type: Media Release
More content from: Faculty of Health and Social Development, School of Health and Exercise Sciences

Trending Stories

  • Putting community, students and research on the same track
  • Reducing the side effects of cancer therapy
  • Psychedelic mushroom microdoses can improve mood, mental health
  • Made in Canada breakthrough is a gamechanger in heart valve technology
  • Stranger Things: How Netflix teaches economics
All Stories
Contact Media Relations

About UBC Okanagan

UBC’s Okanagan campus is an innovative hub for research and learning founded in partnership with local Indigenous peoples, the Syilx Okanagan Nation, in whose traditional, ancestral and unceded territory the campus resides. The most established and influential global rankings all consistently place UBC in the top five per cent of universities in the world, and among the top three Canadian universities.

The Okanagan campus combines a globally recognized UBC education with a tight-knit and entrepreneurial community that welcomes students and faculty from around the world in British Columbia’s stunning Okanagan Valley. For more visit ok.ubc.ca.

Discover more about UBC Okanagan

Find a Program Admissions Book a Tour UBCO Facts
UBC Okanagan Campus News, University Relations

Innovation Precinct Annexation 1 (IA1)
3505 Spectrum Court
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 2Z1

We respectfully acknowledge the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples, in whose traditional, ancestral, unceded territory UBC Okanagan is situated.

 

Search all stories

Subscribe to receive news by email

Visit UBC's Vancouver news room

Global and Admin Messages

News

Okanagan Campus

TikTok icon Linkedin icon

UBC Okanagan News
Okanagan Campus
3333 University Way
Kelowna, BC Canada V1V 1V7
Find us on
  
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility