Investigating the link between stress and heart disease
Dr Nicola Paine explains the impact of her research and the influence that it has on undergraduate teaching.
Biosciences programmes at Loughborough are delivered by academics with expertise in areas such as regenerative medicine, health, nutrition and physical activity.
Research informed teaching
The opportunity to learn from world-leading researchers ensures that you’re the theory that you learn reflects the very latest understanding and developments in the biosciences sector.
One academic who is using her research to tackle global health issues is Dr Nicola Paine – a Lecturer in Health Psychology. Her research in this area is used to inform the module Lifestyle and Disease, delivered as part of the Human Biology and Biological Sciences degrees at Loughborough.
Psychological stress and heart disease
Dr Paine is investigating the links between physical activity, sedentary behaviour and how the immune system responds to acute periods of psychological stress.
She uses this research to consider how these factors interact as a potential mechanism for developing heart disease.
We know that heart disease accounts for more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK. While levels of inactivity and stress are highly prevalent and continuing to rise in our society. Understanding how these factors interact to potentially increase risk of heart disease is a key public health issue.
As we better understand the stress-induced immune mechanisms and cells that are affected by physical inactivity, we can start to design interventions to target these mechanisms – this will help improve our responses to stress and more widely our health.
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