Research summary
Many heart attack patients also present with—or later develop—other diseases. This is a major public health concern because emerging evidence suggests that cross-disease communication can result in worse outcomes for patients. But insights into the mechanisms that influence cross-disease communication—as well as treatments to improve multi-disease outcomes in cardiovascular disease—remain largely unexplored.
As Canada Research Chair in Public Health ‘Omics in Exercise and Disease, Dr. Graeme Koelwyn is working to define the mechanisms that enable cross-disease communication between cardiovascular disease and its comorbidities (including cancer and infection) as well as how exercise can mitigate these interactions. He and his research team aim to define how heart attack induces—and how exercise protects against—the inflammatory and immune dysregulation that impact the risk of comorbidity and progression for patients with cardiovascular disease. Their work will yield valuable insights for future studies to inform public health strategies and cardiac rehabilitation approaches for patients.