Our mission

Research in the ECHO Lab is focused on furthering our understanding of the cardiovascular responses to exercise across the spectrum of health and disease. We use assessments of cardiovascular health at rest, during exercise and after exercise to i) gain insight into the physiological mechanisms contributing to normal and abnormal cardiovascular responses to exercise, and ii) examine individual cardiovascular responses to exercise and compare the differences between low and high exercise responders.

Identifying individuals at risk

Exaggerated blood pressure responses to exercise, which describe higher than normal blood pressures during exercise testing, are prognostic of cardiovascular disease and death. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of adult deaths in the United States and worldwide; therefore, identifying individuals at risk of developing cardiovascular disease is of paramount importance. Our research is focused on assessing how factors related to the individual and exercise testing protocol affect the blood pressure responses during exercise. Furthermore, we seek to identify the physiological mechanisms contributing to elevated exercise blood pressures. Our goal is to improve the clinical utility of exaggerated blood pressure responses to exercise to help identify individuals at risk of cardiovascular disease and subsequently lessen the burden of this disease.

Personalizing exercise prescriptions

Exercise, like medicine, needs to be personalized. Rather than take a “one size fits all” approach to improving physical fitness, we need to consider the unique characteristics of the individual when designing their exercise program. Individuals respond differently to exercise; some are low responders while other are high responders. Our research is focused on delineating the physiological differences between low and high responders and understanding how the exercise prescription modifies these responses. Our goal is to create personalized exercise prescriptions which provide a stimulus that is sufficient to elicit favorable improvements in health.