Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Irisin is a recently discovered hormone that is released into the blood after exercise. In mice it was shown to cause weight loss and improve their metabolic health. However, the benefits of irisin in people still need to be confirmed. The purpose of our study will be to study how the levels of irisin in the blood may change when people who are overweight or mildly obese and do not exercise regularly undergo a 6 month exercise training program. We will compare this group called 'active' to another group called 'control' that will continue with the same habits and will not be a part of the exercise program. At the end of the 6 months, we will see whether there are changes in irisin levels in the 'active' group when compared to the 'control' group. We will see if these changes in irisin levels are related to changes and improvements in metabolic health. As this hormone can affect the muscle and the fat, we will also study samples of muscle and fat in everyone before and at the end of the 6 months. The results of this study will help us understand how irisin works, and in the future we can explore how we can use irisin as a treatment to improve our health.