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University of Western Australia researcher Louise Naylor (School of Sport Science, Exercise and Health) has won a Sports Medicine Australia award for her research on the direct effect of exercise on vascular health.

Louise presented the results of her and co-researchers, Howard Carter, Danny Green, Matt FitzSimons, Tim Cable and Dick Thijssen’s study at the Asics Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport in Port Douglas in November.

She took home the Award for Best Paper Overall. The prize is awarded for the best paper in the categories of lower limb, clinical sports medicine, exercise and sports science, injury prevention, and physical activity and health promotion. More than 250 research papers were presented.

Louise’s research looked at the effect that exercise and heat have on blood vessels and cardiovascular health.

“Cardiovascular disease is the world’s biggest killer and whilst exercise is good for preventing it, we do not really understand how exercise improves our health,” she said.

“While we know exercise directly improves our risk factors (inflammation, high blood pressure, cholesterol and obesity), these improvements only account for about half of the benefit of exercise on health and cardiovascular risk.”

The study, funded by the Australian Research Council, has shown a direct effect of exercise on the blood vessels caused by increases in blood flow during exercise. This in turn has been linked to protection against cardiovascular disease.

“Through this study, we learned how exercise can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, and also discovered that repeated exposure to heating can enhance blood vessel health, even without exercise,” Louise said.

“This means that heat therapy – that is, saunas – may be a viable approach for improving vascular health in people who cannot exercise. Of course, heat alone can reduce your cardiovascular risk, but it cannot give you all of the benefits of exercise.”