Student research project
Heart health in women: role of physical activity to prevent cardiovascular disease cardiometabolic health in women
Supervisors: Associate Professor Erin Howden and Dr Leah Wright
Project summary
Gender and sex both play major roles in the development of cardiometabolic disease in women. Yet, women are underrepresented in clinical trials that aim to prevent heart disease, and outcomes are rarely specified in sex-specific terms. Physical activity levels play a key role in preventing the development of many chronic diseases like diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. In a broader context, physical activity levels in women could produce different long-term CVD outcomes to men. Our group has extensively studied female athletes and physiological remodelling in response to lifetime exercise training. Extending work into physical activity rates and physiological response in a population-based cohort would enable our work to extend beyond physiological mechanism, to a translatable population-based approach. In addition to the role of behaviours our group is interested in the response to different cardioprotective therapies in women, and the role of these in preventing debilitating conditions like heart failure.
There is an opportunity for a PhD or Masters Student to undertake a research project that will seek to better understand the development of cardiometabolic disease in women and the role of cardio-metabolic protective interventions including exercise and pharmacological therapies.
This project is suitable for a Masters, Honours or PhD student and will involve the application of bioinformatics, human research and data analysis.