Meet Our Alberta Researchers
Dr. Norm Campbell
Leading the way in reducing salt intake

The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that hypertension (high blood pressure) is the primary risk resulting in death on a global scale. Consequently, the WHO is encouraging countries worldwide to proactively manage hypertension to improve the overall health and lifespan of their citizens.  

Over the last decade, Canada has become a leader in the areas of high blood pressure research, awareness, and treatment, largely as a result of the work of Calgary-based Dr. Norm Campbell, president of Blood Pressure Canada and holder of the CIHR Chair in Hypertension Prevention and Control.

Dr. Campbell’s visionary leadership and expertise have been instrumental in bringing individuals and groups together to collaborate on controlling hypertension in Canada. He is particularly concerned about sodium (or salt) intake, an important contributor to hypertension. Dr. Campbell spearheaded the creation of a National Policy Statement on Sodium, which was endorsed by seventeen national organizations. The goal of the policy is to get Canadians within the healthy range of sodium intake by 2020 – reducing the average sodium intake of Canadians from 3,500 mg per day today to 1,200 mg per day over the next decade.

To help make this goal a reality, Dr. Campbell has created the Health Canada Working Group on Dietary Sodium Reduction. This multi-sector working group, consisting of health organizations including the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (HSFC), academics and industry representatives, is meeting with food industry executives to help them reduce the amount of sodium added to processed foods.

Dr. Campbell is committed to ensuring that Canadians have access to high-quality care delivered in line with the latest research on hypertension. In his role as Chair of the Canadian Hypertension Education Program (CHEP), he educates health care providers about the best practices for the management and prevention of hypertension.

Finally, as a Heart and Stroke Foundation spokesperson, Dr. Campbell has been instrumental in helping the Foundation to inform the public about the high risk factor associated with hypertension and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Campbell’s life-long advocacy efforts relate directly to the mission of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and have had a significant impact on improving the health of Canadians.

Dr. Kim Raine is the Director of Health Promotion Studies at the University of Alberta, and is an excellent example of how funding from the Heart and Stroke Foundation can make a significant difference in our communities. Dr. Raine is a dedicated researcher focused on how social and cultural situations affect the health and wellness choices that individuals make.

The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, in collaboration with Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), recently created a new Chair position for Applied Public Health Research. In June 2008, the Honourable Tony Clement, Federal Minister of Health, officially announced that Dr. Kim Raine was selected as the first recipient of this unique Chairship, valued at close to $1 million for five years. The first of its kind, the Applied Public Health Chair Program will support universities to establish links with local public health organizations; the overall objectives of the program are to strengthen population/community-level programs, to support policy intervention research, and to
build education capacity.

At the University of Alberta, Dr. Raine is the Principal Investigator of Promoting Optimal Weights through Ecological Research (POWER). It is recognized as an important study related to environment, obesity and how health and wellness can be further promoted, restored and made more accessible at various levels within the general public.

Dr. Raine is also the Co-Principal Investigator of Healthy Alberta Communities (HAC), a study with numerous sources of funding that explores the many factors associated with health problems facing Canadians. Dr. Raine and her team are passionately seeking solutions at the community level for the obesity epidemic in our province and across Canada. HAC is established in four Alberta communities: Norwood/North Central Edmonton, Medicine Hat, St. Paul, and Bonnyville (and surrounding areas). People living in these communities are being asked to recognize what prevents them from making healthy choices. After evaluating the public responses within these communities, the project team will assist the public to take action by removing some of the obstacles that prevent individuals from making healthy decisions.

Many changes are happening in and around Alberta under the inspiring leadership of Dr. Raine. Her outstanding contribution to research is an illustration of how funds raised for the Heart and Stroke Foundation contribute to our vision to eliminate death and disability from heart disease and stroke.

In 2007-2008, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Alberta, NWT & Nunavut provided more than $5 million in funding to heart and stroke researchers in Alberta, and across Canada. From the ability to diagnose and treat babies with heart disease even before they are born, to the development of a drug that can, in many cases, actually reverse the effects of a stroke, our researchers are making a difference.

The Fat Truth About Obesity
The obesity epidemic has reached all corners of the world. According to the World Health Organization, there are now more than 1 billion overweight adults in the world, of which at least 300 million are obese. Obesity and overweight pose a major risk for chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension and stroke, type-2 diabetes, and certain forms of cancer.

"Yet, despite the tragedy that surrounds obesity, there is a lack of evidence-based research and funding to better understand the processes at play in weight gain and weight loss," says Dr. Arya Sharma, Professor and Chair in Obesity Research and Management with the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Alberta.

"Diet and exercise alone simply don't work for most patients." Clearly, even with decades of fad diets and various exercise regimes, the overall weight gain of adults around the world has significantly increased.

"Obesity is a chronic condition," says Sharma. He explains that changing one's lifestyle to include diet and exercise will generally help reduce your weight by only three to five percent in the long-term. "To lose 10 to 15 percent of your weight and keep it off, you may need medication in addition to lifestyle change," says Sharma. "And if you need to lose and keep off more than that for medical reasons, you may need to consider surgery."

Sharma is studying obesity to help find solutions to the growing epidemic. "There are two big barriers to fighting obesity," says Sharma. First, there is the widespread stigma and discrimination against obese people; obese people are seen as simply lazy and indulgent, when really the causes are quite complex, he explains. The second barrier is the lack of long-term treatments; people with obesity often succeed in losing weight when following a treatment, but as soon as they stop the treatment the weight comes back.

Treating obesity is far more difficult than simply telling people to reduce calories and increasing physical activity. Being overweight or obese can be symptoms of other root causes, for instance, of anxiety or depression. "In this case, patients need to address the root cause, and undergo treatment for these disorders," says Sharma. "In other cases, the root cause can be immobility due to pain or injury, or medications that promote weight gain."

"Obesity is a chronic condition like diabetes and high blood pressure," says Sharma. "Yet, it's generally not treated as a chronic disease. You can go to the mall and walk into a 'weight-loss' clinic, but you won't find a diabetes or hypertension clinic in the malls. In contrast to services provided by doctors, registered dietitians and other health professionals, the weight loss industry is largely unregulated."

Sharma explains that the medical community has to start treating obesity as a chronic disease. "As with other chronic conditions such as hypertension or diabetes, which are likewise rarely controlled by lifestyle change alone, obesity also often needs medical, or in severe cases, even surgical treatment.

That being said, preventing obesity rather than treating it would be preferable, but given our current North American lifestyle, preventing obesity faces many social challenges. "It's going to take huge policy changes - from creating walking communities to posting calories on restaurant menus - to build a society that promotes healthy weights," says Sharma. "Sadly, we're still quite a way from creating that kind of environment, which means we'll have to also begin providing evidence-based treatments to adequately treat obesity in patients, who already have this condition."

Dr. Gary Lopaschuk

As the Scientific Director for the Mazankowski Alberta Heart Institute, Dr. Gary Lopaschuk is faced with the very real results of heart disease every day. What separates him from many of his peers is his translational approach to research.
Dr. Lopaschuk’s work looks at the relationship between obesity, diabetes, hypertension and heart disease and at the mechanisms that control energy use in the heart muscle. Dr. Lopaschuk’s groundbreaking work blurs the lines between cardiology, pediatrics, pharmacology and physiology.

The heart functions in a fine balance of input, output, energy consumed and energy stored. The food and drink that we consume is later turned into caloric energy for our body and fuel for our vital organs. Dr. Lopaschuk knows the importance of maximizing the quality of our fuel input, “You are what you eat - choose to eat a balanced, healthy diet.”

When the heart experiences an insult, such as a heart attack, the energy balance is disturbed, and that can result in sometimes devastating injury to the heart muscle. Dr. Lopaschuk’s multi-faceted approach to research has allowed him to take information from one specialized area of medicine and apply it to other areas. This unique ability has enabled Dr. Lopaschuk to isolate drugs, originally developed to treat diabetes, that will prevent damage to heart tissue following a cardiac event.

Dr. Lopaschuk has studied at some of the best institutions in the world, including the Mayo Clinic and the Hershey Medical Centre in the United States. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, Dr. Lopaschuk has chosen to live and work in Alberta because of the high caliber of research in the province. He is an advocate of the role that the Heart and Stroke Foundation plays in securing and funding research and credits it as ”a central and important player in the support of research. It is also the main advocate of health care promotion in the heart and stroke area.”