[Ambitious Graduate Students] A Dream to Help Everyone Get Healthy without Realizing It ~ Demonstrating at the molecular level that "exercise is good for you” and giving something back to society at large~
Kenichiro Inoue, Graduate School of Sport and Health Science
Everyone wants to lead a healthy life, but even if you feel this way, it is never easy to put a regulated lifestyle into practice where you get more exercise and keep an eye on your diet for the sake of your own health.
Kenichiro Inoue researches the effects of exercise on the human body and its underlying mechanisms. Beyond his research, his goal is to realize a society where everyone can effortlessly lead healthy lives. In this interview, we sat down with Inoue, who is firmly dedicated to unlocking the wonders of the human body.
An academic approach to unpacking the familiar notion that “exercise is good for the body”
In his research, Inoue focuses on elucidating the mechanisms by which habitual aerobic exercise prevents cardiovascular disease. By elucidating these mechanisms, he aims to achieve evidence-based, more effective ways to prevent cardiovascular disease.
“It has been said for the past 10 years that some hormones secreted from the muscles may have an effect on arteriosclerosis, and furthermore, the research suggests that there is a relationship between hormones and exercise. In other words, exercise may increase the production of hormones that affect the blood vessels. But does the increased hormone secretion from skeletal muscle due to habitual exercise really play a role in the prevention of arterial sclerosis? This is something that has not been studied.”
The hormone secreted from skeletal muscle that Inoue has zeroed in on is called myokine. He hypothesizes that habitual aerobic exercise such as running increases the amount of myokine secreted from skeletal muscle, which may prevent cardiovascular disease by reduction of arterial stiffness, and he is currently conducting experiments and analyses on this. In this way, he aims to answer this question not only by analyzing gene and protein expression and evaluating vascular function, but also by taking various other approaches that involve statistical analysis.
Using large cross-sectional studies to scientifically explore exercise and health
To elucidate the effects of myokine, Inoue has animals and humans undergo aerobic training, then compares the data before and after training to examine the relationship between changes in myokine levels and the prevention of arterial sclerosis. In addition, he is currently undertaking a cross-sectional study to collect and analyze a larger number of subjects.
“For the first few years of my research, I was doing intervention studies, looking at hormone levels and arterial stiffness before and after aerobic training. Now I am gathering hundreds of subjects with more diverse personalities and statistically analyzing whether there is a relationship between their fitness levels, health condition, and hormone levels.”
It is a cross-sectional study to statistically analyze the causal relationship between exercise and hormone secretion, controlling for the characteristics of different subjects. The study takes a completely different approach than intervention studies, comparing hormone levels according to the frequency of exercise and differences in body size and fitness level. With this study, Inoue might be able to clearly demonstrate that myokine has a positive impact on the human body in many ways, including effects on not only cardiovascular disease, but also on obesity and diabetes and improving blood cholesterol levels.
“It is not an easy road because you often don't get the results that you originally hypothesized. Every time I hit a wall, I check what happened before moving on to my next experiment. Sometimes things don't go as smoothly as I would like, but I am very happy when the statistically processed data matches my predicted results exactly. Those are the time when I am glad that I persisted with my research.”
Despite the various difficulties he has faced, Inoue’s desire to make as many people as possible healthy, which lies at the root of his research, has never ceased. Where does this motivation come from?
“I want to find something I can be passionate about.” Starting off with a strong conviction
Inoue has always loved sports, and he played soccer in high school. After entering college, he developed an interest in the field of sport science, but he says he was looking for something he could devote himself to with certainty. It was during this time that something he learned in class gave him a shock. He learned that the third most common risk factor leading to death among Japanese people, after smoking and high blood pressure, is lack of exercise. Prior to his university studies, Inoue had never been deeply aware of the impact of exercise on health, and he was surprised to see so many people suffering from health problems due to lack of exercise.
It is not only athletes who need exercise. It became clear to him that exercise was necessary for everyone to maintain their health. Inoue's horizons were quickly broadened by this lecture.
“Even though it is a well-known fact that sports are good for the body, only a handful of people in the world play sports habitually. On the other hand, disease prevention and health maintenance are everyone's concern, not to mention essential topics for better living. I realized that the lack of exercise is directly related to health problems and that helping to find a solution to this problem would lead to a more vibrant society. I started my research because I knew I could make a tremendous difference in the lives of so many people.”
Moving from conscious, effort-based prevention to the concept of primordial prevention
Inoue wanted to expand his learning beyond the laboratory, so he joined the Advanced Leadership Development Program that Ritsumeikan University launched in 2019 to transcend existing frameworks to foster doctoral level human resources. It was there that he encountered the concept of primordial prevention, which can positively impact everyone’s lives, at a seminar led by the director of a company that operates a major sports gym who also mentors Inoue once a month. Based on the idea of how to make conscious individual effort unnecessary, primordial prevention is a concept that seeks to protect people from disease by encouraging them to take actions that lead to a healthier lifestyle without realizing it, from the perspective of the environment, urban design, and behavioral design.
"I joined an urban development conference that my mentor was attending and saw that many professionals and executives had a bird's eye view of health. Seeing how they were thinking about ways to make people healthier from a variety of perspectives made me realize how narrow-minded I was. At that time, the ideas of making people healthy with a management approach and pursuing community development that encourages healthy living did not exist for me. I cannot count the number of things I have learned from my mentor, including a wide range of knowledge, different ways of thinking, and attitudes toward work. As I was attempting to expand my learning opportunities, learning about the importance of primordial prevention was epoch-making. I became aware of the importance of communicating my research in a way that is both easy for the general public to understand and easy for companies to utilize for the benefit of society.”
Forging ahead to an ideal future by proactively choosing topics and continuing to learn
Inoue was offered a research position at a food-related company, and after he completes his program, he will continue to seek a path toward primordial prevention by way of his research on food products. He ended the interview by talking about his prospects for the future.
“Right now, my strongest desire is to contribute to primordial prevention. Even though we all know that exercise is good for our health, it is difficult to force someone to exercise unless they want to, and it is difficult for most of us to sustain a rigorous exercise program. Therefore, I am focusing on food, which is something everyone needs even if they are not conscious of it.
Because a proper diet can maximize the effects of low-intensity exercise, it has the potential to reduce the burden of exercise, and because food is directly related to health, I believe it is the key to finding a path to effortless healthy living for everyone. This is why I want to work in product development at a company with my new research focus of food and health.”
Even though Inoue will switch his research topic from exercise and health to food and health, his desire to contribute to people's health remains unchanged. Keenly aware of the connection between society and research, Inoue has always pursued new knowledge that he could not acquire just by working in the laboratory. His lively demeanor during this interview provided us with a glimpse of how research can energize people and society as a whole.
Press Conference Held on the New Developments at Osaka Ibaraki Campus
