SamHeadley AwardedNIHGrant By Kerri Fleming Vautour ’07


THE LEGACY OF SPRINGFIELD COLLEGE in the area of scientific research is long and storied. Faculty members on the campus have conducted research—offering groundbreaking insights—that has changed previously held scientific viewpoints and challenged conventional thinking. The knowledge and research of Luther Halsey Gulick resulted in prolific writing that often offered new considerations to shape different ways of thinking. His books, all written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, include Physical Education by Muscular Exercise (1904), The Efficient Life (1907),Mind andWork (1908), and The Healthful Art of Dancing (1910), among others. Later, there was Thomas Cureton,who wrote or co-authored fifty


books and served as the research director of the National Aquatic Congress of the YMCA for twenty-five years. And Peter Karpovich created homemade research devices that resulted in measurable and meaningful data, as well as lifelong memo- ries for his students who spent time as somewhat willing participants in his studies. (Read more about both of these men in “Legends,” on page 6.) More recently, professors Frank Torre and


Chun-KwunWun G’69 developed a device to test for E.coli in food in the late 1990s, a key discovery in the prevention of sickness and death caused by the bacteria. Now, the latest in this long line of scientific


comfortable with the SphygmoCor, a state-of-the-art tool used to measure arterial stiffness that Headley purchased using the NIH grant money in preparation for the research. “What we are measuring is pulse-wave velocity,where the faster


the blood goes through the veins, the stiffer the arteries are,” Headley said.“The degree of your arterial stiffness will help predict whether you develop cardiovascular disease in the future.” Headley,who earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education


“Whatwe aremeasuring is pulse-wave velocity,where the faster the blood goes through the veins, the stiffer the arteries are,”


researchers at Springfield College, Samuel Headley, Ph.D., professor of exercise science and sport studies, has received a $228,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant is to fund research to determine whether exercise can decrease the odds of cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease. Headley will recruit fifty patients with stage III renal disease


Headley said.“The degree of your arterial stiffness will help predictwhether


you develop cardiovascular disease in the future.”


from the University of Birmingham in England, a master’s in human and applied physiology from the University of London, and a Ph.D. in exercise fromTemple University, has worked at Springfield College since 1992. He was drawn to researching hypertension because of a family history of the disease, and that interest spread when he met Dr.Michael Germain ofWestern New England Renal and Transplant Associates. Headley contacted Germain originally to inquire about practicum experience opportunities for Springfield College graduate students, and that relationship has led to several research projects. “When I first came to Springfield College,my


main focus was hypertension. That was an interest I had as a graduate student, and when I arrived here,we actually did a couple of studies looking at the effect of exercise on recovery blood pressure in hypertensive patients,”Headley said.“Then, proba- bly in the late ’90s, I was looking for a place for some of our graduate students to do their practical experience. Eventually, I got to speak to Mike Germain. He is a pioneer in kidney research. He, along with former Springfield College faculty members from the 1980s,was part of a group that


was the first to exercise dialysis patients. Therefore, he was accus- tomed to working with Springfield College faculty.” In 2006, Headley and Germain received a grant from Baystate


(there are five stages of renal function,with the fifth requiring dialysis or transplantation) caused by hypertension or diabetes for the sixteen-week study. The patients will perform a supervised, moderate-intensity cardiovascular workout three times a week. At regular intervals during the study, Headley will measure the patients’ physical fitness, body fat, arterial stiffness, cholesterol, glucose, and vasoactive substances. Headley will be aided by three graduate assistants: doctoral


students Sara Gregory and Kim Goodwin ’06, and master’s-level student Thomas Black. They are being trained to perform the need- ed measurements, not the least of which involves getting


Medical Center to research whether exercise and improved diet would slow the progression of kidney disease in stage II-IV patients. “The patients in dialysis are very de-conditioned. They have


cardiovascular disease. They can’t do much, but we can help them. We can help them to improve their quality of life,”Headley said. “That got me to design a three-year study,with Mike’s help, that was awarded funding from Baystate, to see if we could somehow alter the stages of the disease.” While this research was being completed, a brand new statistic


had Headley change his approach. It was discovered that,while there are 16 million people in the United States with kidney disease in stages III and IV, only around 400,000 progress to stage V. The rest Continued on next page


Samuel Headley, Ph.D., and graduate assistant Thomas Black run pre-study tests on Ryan Sullivan ’11 in the Human Performance Lab. 11


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