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Next Fellowship Inaugural Lecture explores whether we are sitting on a health crisis

Dr Nicola Paine from the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences will explore the links between stress and the risk of heart disease, and how sedentary behaviour and physical activity may play an important role in this relationship in her inaugural lecture.

The lecture – which takes place on Wednesday 6 July at 12.30pm – is the latest in the University’s Fellowship Inaugural Lecture series, organised in association with the Loughborough University Research Staff Association.

This series showcases Loughborough University’s Research Fellows, who are presenting their cutting-edge research and outlining their career to date.

Acute stress can be a trigger for acute cardiovascular events such as heart attacks. When someone is under acute stress, we see short-term physiological changes in their cardiovascular and inflammatory markers. These changes could have important implications for the risk of future cardiovascular disease development and outcomes.

Health behaviours such as physical activity and sitting time are also established risk factors for cardiovascular disease and may interact with physiological changes seen under stress. In her inaugural lecture, Dr Paine will present some of her work on these topics and discuss how being more active and less sedentary may help to reduce stress-related cardiovascular disease risk.

Dr Paine is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. She completed her BSc (Hons) and PhD at the University of Birmingham between 2006-2013. After this, she completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science at Duke University, and secured renowned postdoctoral fellowships to undertake further training in Montreal in the Department of Exercise Science at Concordia University and the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre, within the Research Centre in the Hôpital du Sacré Coeur de Montréal. Dr Paine joined the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University as part of the Excellence 100 scheme. She was awarded a prestigious Springboard Fellowship from the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2021.

To register for the event, please visit the Fellowship Inaugural Lectures website.

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