New study explains why "exercise is good for the heart"
CLAREMONT, Calif.—A team of Brazilian scientists pursuing a
study that began at the Keck Graduate Institute discovered a
gene regulator that keeps hearts healthy even under intense
exercise, providing a medical explanation for why exercise is
good for the heart. “Now, we’re beginning to get to the
molecular basis of why exercise is good for you,” said Dr. Ian
Phillips, KGI’s Norris Professor of Applied Life Sciences, in
whose lab the research on the gene regulator called MicroRNA 29
began. “It’s well known that athletes get large hearts and they
remain healthy while people with large hearts, who are not
athletes, are in big trouble,” Phillips said. “But we’ve never
known before why they were different.” Edilamar de Oliveira, a
biochemistry professor in the Physical Education School at the
University of Sao Paulo, worked with Phillips while doing
postdoctoral studies at KGI from 2007-09. Applying what she
learned about MicroRNAs to her research on physica