Kat Heintzman- We’re In The Big Leagues Now

Academic respect seems to have taken a very different meaning in the transition to grad school. When you do well in undergraduate you are coddled. You get a good grade and feel good about it, ask for letters of reference, and have profs express how delighted they are to help you succeed in the academic path before you.

Grad school is different. I was invited to participate in a campus debate on Gender Identity Disorder’s inclusion in the DSM. I agreed expecting to be on a panel of undergrads. Not the case. I am on a panel with Dr. Myra Hird (a distinguished sociology professor), Dr. Margo Rivera (clinical practitioner), and Kristin Ireland (Ph.D. candidate who’s done a number of campus presentations). I don’t feel ready to have my name beside theirs. I am prepping for this, as I have to come to prep for conferences and even class, ready to be grilled.

Academic respect is now signified through an interrogation of every assumption or failed consideration. While this means that every time you speak it may feel as though you have opened yourself up for attack, I have never before been pushed so hard to think before I speak. There is a sense of empowerment that comes with this form of academic conversation. It is expected that I can hold my own and that when someone challenges me I will have the intellectual momentum to keep up. That’s pretty cool.

Travis Saunders - Exercise and Peripheral Artery Disease

Like most people, I have been aware of the problems associated with reduced blood flow to the heart for quite some time (angina, heart attacks, etc). However, I recently became aware of a related condition known as peripheral artery disease (PAD) when it was diagnosed in a friend of my family. PAD refers to the obstruction of arteries in the arms and legs, and can result in reduced blood flow to muscles below the obstruction. As well as being a risk factor for heart disease, the reduced blood flow associated with PAD can cause significant amounts of pain in the legs when walking even short distances, and can be very debilitating. Not surprisingly given the increased prevalence of risk factors including obesity and diabetes in recent years, the prevalence of PAD is also increasing.Given the serious impact that PAD has had on my friend's mobility, I was pleased when I came across an article examining the positive influence of exercise on PAD in the latest issue of the Journal of Physiology. Taylor and colleagues blocked the femoral artery in rats, then examined blood flow to muscles below the blockage after three weeks of exercise 'training' or a 3 weeks of being confined to their cage. Both groups developed 'collateral' blood vessels to re-route blood around the obstruction, which is pretty cool in and of itself. However, the exercise training group developed larger collateral vessels than the sedentary group, resulting in significantly increased blood flow to muscles below the obstruction in the exercise training group. Although the rats can't verbalize how they feel, I would expect that with increased blood flow the rats in the exercise group would also feel less pain in their legs than those in the sedentary condition.I was most excited to see this study because among other things, my acquaintance has begun a daily walking program and their symptoms have improved considerably since their training began. Exercise is not the only answer for problems like PAD, but it's nice to see that something as simple as a walking program can be part of the solution.

How to publicize your research - Peter Janiszewski

Because there are literally thousands of scientific papers published on a weekly basis, it is often impossible for your study, as important as it may be, to garner the attention it may deserve. Thus, I have recently started taking matters into my own hands. In addition to writing a daily blog (link to http://www.obesitypanacea.blogspot.com/) and hosting a podcast with my lab partner Travis Saunders on which we publicize our work as it becomes published, I have also started writing articles for local papers and newsletters.

The purpose of publicizing your research via non-peer review means (blogs, newsletters, newspapers, magazines, etc.) is manifold. First, if your research involves any number of volunteers from the surrounding community, it is a nice way to officially say thanks for their participation. It may also be one of the few ways they will ever find out about the outcome of the study. Also, if your findings are relevant to the general population and not just the 3 other academics studying your esoteric topic, it is important that your findings are seen by the general population – majority of whom are not likely to read peer-reviewed scientific journals. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, writing for a lay audience forces you to funnel your message when describing your work so that it can be easily understood by people outside of your lab – this will be a tremendous help in social settings, and may finally allow your own parents to understand what the heck it is that you do.

Click here (link to http://obesitypanacea.blogspot.com/2009/02/kingston-seniors-get-fit-for-research.html) to see an article I wrote for Kingston This Week, entitled “Kingston Seniors Get Fit For Research”, which appeared in print on February 5, 2009.

Travis Saunders- Sleep and Childhood Obesity

Although people spend a lot of time discussing the importance of physical activity and a healthy diet, these are not necessarily the only factors affecting obesity prevention and reduction. One very interesting area that is receiving increasing attention is sleep duration, which appears to strongly influence obesity and metabolic disease risk, especially in children.Although the exact physiological function of sleep is still unclear, the idea that sleep deprivation can lead to negative consequences is not a surprise to anyone. What is interesting, is that new studies suggest that even partial sleep restriction can result in increased risk for obesity, type 2 diabetes, and CVD. For example, adults who sleep less have been reported to have increased levels of ghrelin (a hormone which stimulates eating) and decreased levels of leptin (a hormone which inhibits eating). For a great review on this area of research by Dr S Taheri at the University of Bristol, click here. The idea that sleep deprivation might somehow affect hormones or eating patterns in the short term is not all that surprising - think of how most of us crave greasy, energy dense foods after a late night on the town. However, a recent study in Pediatrics suggests that sleep duration in childhood is a significant predictor of obesity rates well into adulthood.In their recent study, Landhuis and colleagues from the University of Otago assessed sleep time in 1000 individuals at 5, 7, 9, 11 and 32 years of age. They report that sleep duration in childhood was a significant predictor of adult BMI, even after control for confounders like socioeconomic status and childhood BMI. Interestingly, adult sleep duration was not associated with adult BMI. Individuals who were classified as childhood "short sleepers" (less than 11 hours/night) had significantly higher BMI's than moderate (11.0-11.5 hours/night ) and long sleepers (>11.5 hours/night) at all ages. Although they did not investigate mechanisms (or suggest how to convince your kids to sleep more), the results of this paper are nonetheless very interesting, and suggest that sleep patterns in childhood (when the brain is still developing) may influence the control of energy homeostasis years down the road. These results also offer one more way that simple lifestyle modifications could help reduce the prevalence of obesity in future generations.

(Photo by peasap)

Kat Heintzman- Guest Lecturing and the Beauty of Interdisciplinarity.

When I was given the opportunity to do a guest lecture I was both excited and terrified. Some of this comes from being in a stream of this department that typically deals with sport, a subject about which I know next to nothing. However, with a background in queer theory I felt like I would be able to put something together on sport and sexuality.

Inspiration comes in the strangest of places. While working on a conference presentation on the representation of transmasculinities in queer feminist pornography I stumbled onto a link to a new porn release called Champion, which tells the story of butch Jess’s sexcapades. She is a mixed-martial-artist fighting for a Championship title in a homophobic industry. (Plot matters!) This opened a whole new door and I went from thinking about discussing LBGTQ athletes to presenting on how sport is eroticized (ie. homoeroticism in contact sport that permit physical contact under the guise of homosociality) as well as how sex is sportified (foxy boxing).

What I valued most as an undergrad in this department and am glad to be a part of as a TA is the diverse material we address in the sociology classes. Courses on sexuality taught me about war and pedagogy, courses on medicalization taught me about branding and consumer choice. I feel so privileged to be a part of that. In sport class that day we talked about Christina Aguilera, foxy boxing, and group showers.

Unite for Sight- Jessica Cowan-Dewar

I just returned from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut where Unite for Sight hosted their annual global health conference. Although Unite for Sight is an NGO that focuses on global eye health and preventable blindness, the conference invites speakers to present on all aspects of global health. This year’s conference “Achieving Global Goals through Innovation” featured keynote addresses by Jeffrey Sachs, PhD (Director of Earth Institute at Columbia University and Special Advisor to Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon), Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, MD, MPH (Health Coordinator, Millennium Village Project), and Harold Varmus MD (President and Chief Executive, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Former Director of the NIH and Nobel Prize Recipient), amongst others. It was an exciting weekend in New Haven - the forsythias were in full bloom and thousands of people from across the globe had traveled to Yale in order to attend this conference. I was there to present a talk entitled “Open Medicine: A Journal and a Social Movement”. I spoke primarily about the role of online, open access, peer-reviewed journals in bettering global health. My co-presenters, Dr. Brian Leonard (a vitreoretinal surgeon at the Ottawa Eye Institute) and Dr. Maria Isabel Herran (Pediatrician at the Rainbow Centre for International Child Health in Cleveland) were excellent and the audience was most receptive. After the weekend away I feel rejuvenated and ready to tackle the last of my doctoral course work. Most importantly, my commitment to the field of global health has been reaffirmed. I strongly recommend this conference to anyone interested in global health and/or development.

For more information:

Unite for Sight - http://www.uniteforsight.org/what-we-do
Conference - http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference

Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area - Allana LeBlanc

Do you ever lie awake in the early morning thinking of ways to get outdoors?! No? Well don’t worry…you’re not alone but luckily the term “morning person” describes me perfectly and the early mornings seem to be a great chance to do a little personal “research” into outdoor activities around Kingston! Maple Madness is held every year at Little Cataraqui Creek Conservation Area in March and April. The conservation area itself is speckled with hiking trails throughout the woods and although a bit on the wetter side at the moment, the trails themselves were nothing an old pair of shoes couldn’t handle! There are many other events throughout the year to stay busy in the outdoors at Little Cat including skating in the winter and canoeing in the summer..and within a 10 minute drive from downtown, a great place for an outdoor adventure.

Once in the park, you arrive to the Sugar Shack itself by either walking the trails or hitching a ride with the tractor-pulled covered-wagon. At the Sugar Shack there are guides are around to show how the making of maple syrup has evolved over the centuries…. And more importantly (in my stomachs opinion at least), they are also serve up some tasty tassssty pancakes! (our best estimate was in the 1000s/day!) When we got there it was a unanimous “wagon ride” in lieu of walking to the ol’ Sugar Shack (note – there were many children under the age of three that seemed rather content with the trek). Once off the tractor and in response to my growling stomach it was time for PANCAKES! WITH TWO SCOOPES OF SYRUP! And we’re talking REAL, straight from the trees, not even bottled, LIQUID GOLD! To say they were delicious is an understatement but my “Word Thesaurus” didn’t seem to have a better alternative. After devouring my first flapjack in seconds I understood why the person behind me stated they wanted “12”…they were about 7 years old … Mom quickly interjected.

After the sugar rush hit we decided to go back in the Shack to get a maple candy (for desert of course…) and head up the trail to check out the syrup buckets! The trails are easy to follow and lead you up and around the sprawling forest. The walk itself was a great way to get active on the weekend and a nice way to enjoy the sunshine! On the way back we stopped at the “Chickadee feeding area” to get “in touch with nature” but alas the birds were nowhere in sight and coldness was setting in. We packed ourselves back in the car and got back in town just as the sugar rush was at its end and in time for a well deserved afternoon nap…we were spent…until next Sunday…

Visit their www for more info on upcoming events! http://www.cataraquiregion.on.ca/