Mayor Ken Christian has proclaimed June 10 to 16 as Canadian Men’s Health Week in Kamloops.

Dr. Mark Rakobowchuk is an associate professor in biological sciences focusing on teaching and research in human physiology with an emphasis on understanding how physical activity—or a lack thereof—influences health. He is also the director of the Extracellular Vesicles and Endothelial Dynamics Lab at TRU where cardiovascular disease risk is often assessed alongside exercise capacity.

His expertise mainly surrounds cardiovascular system, which is the main contributor to poor health and chronic disease among men. Specifically, Rakobowchuk studies cardiovascular changes that happen following physiological perturbations like exercise, high altitude, diet, and inactivity. In more depth, he studies the interplay between platelets that are involved in blood clotting, the lining of your blood vessels (the endothelium), and the influence of vascular stem cells called endothelial progenitor cells in people.

Quote: “You can do all the population health studies that you want, but we are at the stage in research where we need to better understand what’s going on inside the body to get an idea of what works for each individual. For example, you may not be one of those people who really gets much faster running a 5 km after months of training, but the health benefits we can only really measure at the cellular level, may be much more profound and important in the long run.”

Dr. Mark Rakobowchuk, Faculty of Science
250-371-5544 | mrakobowchuk@tru.ca