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In May 2001, Frank Booth,
left, and more than 40 scientists met with Washington D.C.
media and legislative staff members to discuss governmental
ways to help rid inactivity as a contributor to disease.
The effort resulted in at least one appropriations’
bill being modified to address the scientists’ concerns.
Photo by Randy Mertens
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New
Health Activity Center Opens
By Christian Basi
Diabetes, cardiovascular disease and high
blood pressure are just some of the problems that overweight people
may encounter. While researchers across the globe are working
to solve these problems, the University of Missouri-Columbia has
created the new MU
Health Activity Center under the leadership of one MU professor.
The center is the focal point of an effort to bring a cross-disciplinary
approach to investigating the sedentary lifestyle, which is believed
to be the cause of many of these problems.
“Sedentary lifestyle leads to chronic
illness and no one is looking at it through a cross-disciplinary
approach,” said Frank Booth, professor of biomedical
sciences and founder of the new MU Health Activity Center.
“We need to look at this problem from a variety of angles.
MU, with its blend of veterinary medicine, medicine, nursing,
health professions, and arts and sciences on the same campus,
is in a great position to lead this charge.”
According to Booth, scientists in many scientific
disciplines, such as archeology
and anthropology,
have information that would benefit this field. For example, by
knowing how genes were selected 10,000 years ago and how that
selection influenced metabolism, scientists might learn how the
body stores fat and how it uses the excess weight.
“We used to eat more than we do now,
but we’re still overweight,” Booth said. “Lots
of people talk about glycemic indices when discussing diets, but
they have forgotten the other half of the equation—exercise.
When you put gas into a car and you don’t use the car, the
gas just sits there. We can talk about dieting all we want, but
if we continue to sit on the couch, we won’t see any benefits.”
With a strong basic science approach to fighting
obesity already established, Booth wants the center to develop
a human component and translate the findings discovered through
animal models for humans. Data gained from animal and human experiments
shows that exercise and an active lifestyle benefit people not
only physically, but also on a cognitive level as well. The Health
Activity Center will translate these benefits for humans and publicize
the results to the general population, Booth said.
“Inactivity does more for the body than
just make you fat,” Booth said. “It slows you down
mentally and may bring on the onset of other diseases that we
didn’t think were related to obesity. Our new center is
going to take an interdisciplinary approach, find the connections
and the solutions to these problems and spread the word. The amount
of money that could be saved in health care costs alone is staggering.”
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Last Update:
April 1, 2008
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