Cardiovascular research

Super Rehab aims to halt the progression of heart disease, help patients feel better, and potentially turn the clock back and reverse the disease. Helping to alleviate the need for ongoing drugs or even surgery.

With the ongoing success of Super Rehab our Cardiology research team want your help to take their next steps and explore the unexplored.

Heart and circulatory disease cause a quarter of all deaths in the UK. One of the leading signs of cardiovascular disease is exertional chest pain commonly known as angina.

This type of chest pain is often caused by disease in the large arteries which supply the heart. However, many patients who present with this type of chest pain may not have blockages in their large arteries.

This next step in Super Rehab will focus on patients’ smaller arteries. Patients with angina may have no blockages in their large arteries which can lead to misdiagnosis. The new phase of this research project will help to recognise that our smaller arteries play a big part in our heart health and can often be the cause of angina, and may be related to ‘microvascular’ disease.

“My experience of the programme is positive so far! At the beginning I was quite surprised when I was chosen to have the ‘full works’ of a personal trainer and a dietician helping me along the pathway. I met up with Lucy Miller the trainer at Bath Uni Sports Village and was amazed at the facilities there. She is fantastic and put me at ease when I explained about my physical ailments (hip replacement, labyrinthitis) and told me the aim was not to kill me, just to improve my cardio fitness. Admittedly I was full of trepidation when I went for my first training session, as the gym was full of skinny young students doing impossible things on the equipment but I thought, well I’m 73 so better late than never!!

“As I had never been in a gym before I was a bit worried that I would make a fool of myself but once I got going I began to enjoy the workouts, although I do not like the exercise bike or the cross trainer! One highlight for me was finding something that I was good at – the rowing machine. Another highlight was Nicola the dietician confirming that my diet was very good, and suggesting a few foods that I could introduce to boost my calcium intake so I am now hooked on houmous and probiotic drinks!”

“The impact on my life has been beneficial- I have lost weight and dropped a dress size, although I was happy with the size I was at the beginning. Even Lucy said, when we first met, that she was expecting someone larger than me! I feel a lot healthier too, and now walk at lot further than I did before. As well as my Myzone tracker and phone app I have a Fitbit and try to do my 10,000 steps every day. Technology is a wonderful thing!”