Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Canada and worldwide. While coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery remains the preferred strategy to restore blood flow to the heart in CAD patients, this procedure is associated with peri- and post-surgery complications. The duration and/or severity of cardiovascular tissue exposed to ischaemia is strongly related to morbidity and mortality, hence the importance to minimize tissue injury to ischaemia during surgery. Novel cardioprotective strategies are needed to improve clinical outcomes in patients undergoing CABG surgery. This project will build on exciting research findings in both animal models and healthy participants demonstrating that an acute bout of exercise lowers tissue injury to ischaemia-reperfusion. The goal of the proposed research is to examine the hypothesis that a single bout of handgrip exercise can attenuate vascular and cardiac injury to ischaemia-reperfusion in participants with CAD. Moreover, I hypothesize that these effects can be enhanced through a short period (4-days) of daily handgrip exercise training. These effects of local handgrip exercise on mediating smaller vascular and cardiac injury to ischaemia will ultimately lead to lower post-surgery morbidity/mortality. The simplicity, low cost, and low risk of handgrip exercise makes it highly suitable to implement into clinical care to potentially reduce cardiac and vascular injury to ischaemia. Moreover, this work will contribute to informing and optimizing exercise guidelines prior to cardiac surgery.