Triple research threat
Simon Bacon puts considerable heart and breath into his work — literally. As a professor in the Concordia Department of Exercise Science, a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute, and a scientist at the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Bacon studies how people can change their behaviours to avert cardiac and respiratory illnesses.
“People don’t need to make radical changes to be healthier,” he says. “Small changes can produce the biggest, long-term and positive effects.
“A person can drive to work, park 10 minutes from his or her office and walk the remaining distance,” he continues. “Those daily walks can allow someone to lose two pounds per year. Such weight loss, in turn, makes for a stronger heart.”
Born in the United Kingdom, Bacon obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham and came to North America to complete his post-doctoral studies at Duke and McGill universities. He arrived at Concordia five years ago after meeting his wife, Kim Lavoie, who happened to be a graduate of the university (MA 97 and PhD 03 in Psychology).
Since the couple’s research is complementary — Lavoie is also researching how lifestyle choices influence health — they founded and co-direct the Montreal Behavioural Medicine Centre (MBMC). They lead a team that examines how exercise, diet, stress management and psychological factors can influence the development and progression of heart and lung illness.
The MBMC will soon be housed in the PERFORM Centre – an acronym for Prevention, Evaluation, Rehabilitation and Formation – which is currently taking shape on the Loyola Campus (see sidebar below).
“The PERFORM Centre, which is the first of its kind in Canada, will revolutionize research at Concordia,” says Bacon, noting the site will promote multidisciplinary research and serve as a platform to educate the public on health matters.
“Montreal is a hotbed of research,” says Bacon, noting that with four universities and two hospital research institutes – the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal and the McGill University Health Centre – our metropolis is an ideal place to house the PERFORM Centre. “Human diseases are complex and we need experts from several milieux to come together and look at illness from a lot of different angles.”
Bacon’s research domain is also ripe for partnerships. “No matter where I’ve worked, I’ve found the collaborative spirit in Exercise Science departments to be phenomenal. It’s a transfer from the team camaraderie that’s found in the sports environment,” he says.
With labs at both the Montreal Heart Institute and the Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal, Bacon often collaborates with colleagues from those institutions. A case in point is the study he recently co-authored, and had published in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention. It recommends that people with anxiety and depression get additional cardiac testing.
When diagnosing heart problems, doctors typically administer an electrocardiogram (ECG) test, which involves a patient being connected to electrodes and put through a series of exercises on a treadmill. “An ECG is usually reliable for most people, but those affected by anxiety or depression may be falling under the radar,” says Bacon.
The finding is significant, with about 20% of people with cardiac illness suffering from anxiety or depression. “ECG tests are not detecting many heart conditions,” he warns.
A simple way to fix the problem is for doctors to administer a questionnaire before an ECG and then prescribe a more complex nuclear test to detect whether bloodflow to the heart is normal. “Otherwise we may be missing people at risk,” he says.
For more information on Simon Bacon’s latest study, please consult now.concordia.ca as of November 10.