PADL team (left to right: PhD students Saeed Reza Toghi Eshghi and Tasuku Terada, Dr. Normand Boulé, PhD student Étienne Myette-Côté, undergraduate practicum student Nicholas Kuzik, Dr. Craig Steinback and Dr. Margie Davenport. Absent: Rachel Skow.
Exercise physiologist Normand Boulé has reason to be pleased these days. Not only has his dream of seeing a new lab space devoted to the study of physical activity and diabetes been realized, the expertise of the lab is expanding thanks to the entry of two new researchers in the Faculty. Margie Davenport, most recently of the University of Calgary, is an authority in exercise during pregnancy and the postpartum period and Craig Steinback, also recruited from U of C, is a leading researcher in hypoxia (low oxygen) and its influence on the autonomic nervous systems; Boulé studies the relationship between physical activity, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Together they're pooling their expertise to find out how physical activity and exercise can mitigate the consequences and comorbidities of diabetes, or prevent its onset in a range of population groups - from pregnant women, to people with obesity, or cardiovascular dysfunction, and even healthy, fit young men and women. Rounding out the research cadre at the PADL are two of the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation's senior professors: Dr. Gordon Bell, one of Canada's leading exercise physiologists and exercise psychologist Dr. Wendy Rodgers, an expert in motivation to exercise.
The Physical Activity and Diabetes Laboratory, or PADL, is housed in the expansive Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Innovation and Research, just steps from the Alberta Diabetes Foundation which generously funded much of the PADL's fit up. The PADL itself is an airy ground floor laboratory with 1002 m of office space for three researchers, grad student carrels, and 1002 m laboratory areas for doing metabolic measurement, blood work, ultrasounds, fitness assessment, etc. There is also a well-appointed 1502 m fitness centre, outfitted with state-of-the-art industrial-grade fitness equipment such as treadmills, cycles and rowers, as well as strength-training equipment - in large part donated by Flaman Fitness, a company known for its support of diabetes research. It's here that study participants will be taught, supervised and monitored as they undertake various exercise prescriptions.
In the floors above, other health sciences faculties at the University of Alberta reside, including diabetes researchers in the Faculty Medicine and Dentistry; the Faculty of Agriculture, Life, and Environmental Sciences, School of Public Health and the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. This close proximity of the university's top minds in diabetes research sparks plenty of interdisciplinary collaborations between faculties.
The lab is busy with many unique projects. Davenport, having arrived recently from Calgary, is unpacking her lab equipment; in one corner an ultrasound unit is readied for her research with pregnant women. "Normand, Craig and I will be collaborating on a study, looking at diabetes or pregnancy-induced hypertension - complications that can result in vascular dysfunction in these pregnancies," she says. "What we don't know are the mechanisms of how that actually happens. So we'll combine our expertise to look at sympathetic nervous system activity, changes in blood hormones, glucose, insulin and try and tease out the actual mechanism between the two." Getting to the bottom of this question is important, says Davenport, because vascular dysfunction in pregnancy can develop into vascular disease and other morbidities or diseases later in the woman's life.
Boulé has a long-standing interest in the impacts of Metformin, commonly prescribed for people with type 2 diabetes and its impacts on their ability to exercise. "I'm very pleased that the PADL offers so many opportunities for collaboration," he says, adding that his interests dovetail with both Steinback and Davenport's and that their combined expertise will enable them to explore understandings of diabetes that haven't been possible before. "For example, there are some really interesting things that happen with diabetes that aren't understood very well in terms of the hormones and the systems that oppose the effect of insulin - and not just glucose lowering effects, but other effects," says Boulé.
Diabetes is generally considered as an insulin-resistant, insulin-deficient disease, but when the counter regulatory hormones are elevated, the sympathetic nervous system is elevated too. "The impact of exercise on these counter regulatory responses isn't well studied and studies that have been done have focused on more invasive, physiological measures, instead of what happens in real life," says Boulé. "So, with research funding from the Alberta Diabetes Institute, we're going to try to take the existing research and put it in a context of type 2 diabetes and more common, everyday events by looking at people's responses to different types of food or sugar for example."
Steinback currently has his own research projects in progress beside the collaborative ones with Boulé and Davenport: one with his current master's student, Rachel Skow, aims to understand the influence of low oxygen on the sympathetic nervous system. "We will expose healthy young individuals to short periods of low oxygen during which we'll measure the activity of their sympathetic nervous systems as well as cardiovascular markers, heart rate, blood pressure and blood flow to certain limbs," explains Steinback. "We think the exposure to low oxygen represents a stress that is not just present during low oxygen but one that carries on afterwards and that could have cardiovascular consequences. We'll start with healthy young individuals to establish a benchmark then eventually we'll expand that to look at other populations or other adaptations."
In a lab that has only recently opened its doors, there are plenty of opportunities for graduate students interested in research. Presently there are four graduate students in the PADL and one practicum student. "We have fantastic opportunities for graduate students, and our research interests, though different, overlap and intersect in a number of areas such as cardiovascular function, obesity, gestational diabetes, managing blood glucose and prevention of diabetes," says Boulé. "PADL is truly an interdisciplinary laboratory where many different types of research converge."