Preventative and Rehabilitative Medicine

IAHP is particularly interested in exercise and nutrition factors in physical health and mental wellbeing across the lifespan. We complete research that supports the treatment and rehabilitation of people with neurological, cardiovascular, respiratory, and musculoskeletal diseases, including Parkinson’s, chronic fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis, and obstructive sleep apnoea. Our research develops interventions to improve lifestyle and examines the possible underlying causes of disease, e.g., sedentarism, high blood pressure, poor vascular health and appetite regulation.  

One of our goals is to address the big societal crisis of lifestyle disease. Lifestyle diseases such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, and many cancers are pandemics: developing insidiously for decades and now prevalent over the entire world. In Wales, this crisis is exacerbated because of health inequality. Yet lifestyle diseases, by their very nature, are largely preventable. Success for us looks like a continued increase in the percentage of the population who are regularly participating in physical activity (up from ~40 to ~50% at the beginning of this decade, but largely static since), and a continued improvement in the nation’s diet (a reduction in intake of free sugars, sugar-sweetened soft drinks, fruit juices, and trans fatty acids was observed at the beginning of this decade, but consumption of total fat, saturated fats, and free sugars are still too high).

We aim to influence the nation’s lifestyle behaviour by using a multi-disciplinary approach of biochemistry, integrative physiology, behaviour change psychology, health economic analyses, and pragmatic and prudent healthcare interventions, to enhance the evidence base for lifestyle interventions to prevent and treat lifestyle diseases. Our work is enabled by our excellent facilities including a £1.033 million investment in a Physical Activity for Health and Wellbeing Centre, and our collaborations with local and other Health Boards, local small/medium enterprises, and global corporations. To ensure our work is impactful, we make certain it is co-designed with patients and the public, is rigorously designed, and is disseminated through our network of staff and collaborators who hold influential positions in national associations, special interest groups, funding bodies, and healthcare commissioners.