Why is it important to understand cardiovascular disease?
This infographic contains some shocking details of the mortality rates due to cardiovascular disease in the UK and around the world. It shows why it’s so important to understand as …
Course: Heart Health: A Beginner's Guide to Cardiovascular Disease
Welcome to Week 4
Welcome to the fourth and final week of ‘Heart Health: A Beginner’s Guide to Cardiovascular Disease’. This week we will be looking at risk factors and prevention, before rounding up …
What’s next?
We hope that this course has helped you to understand how the cardiovascular system works, the causes and risk factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease and the effects that cardiovascular …
Reflection
Dr Natasha Barrett reflects on what we have learnt this week about heart failure, hypertension, valvular disease and arrhythmias. Let us know what you think of this week. Have you …
Welcome to Week 3
Welcome to Week 3 of ‘Heart Health: A Beginner’s Guide to Cardiovascular Disease’. This week we will be concentrating on four types of cardiovascular diseases. We will also investigate the …
Preparing for Heart Failure Practical
The aim of this practical is to investigate the effects of heart failure. We will do this by using a simple hand soap dispenser to mimic the effects of the …
Preparing for the Thrombosis Practical
The aim of this practical is to investigate the effect of thrombosis. We will do this by first making a mock thrombus out of jelly, then using this to mimic …
Welcome to Week 2
Welcome back. This week we will learn about some of the diseases that affect the heart and cardiovascular system and learn about blood clotting processes such as haemostasis and thrombosis. …
Reflection
Dr Natasha Barrett reflects on how we have learnt about how a healthy heart and circulatory system works, so that we may understand more in the coming weeks about what …
How the course is taught
We’ve designed this course to take into account your own learning style and the time that you have available. Each week we’ll present the core content in a series of …
Meet the team
Cardiovascular biology is an important area of research at the University of Reading. The Institute for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research brings together experts from a variety of different departments across …
Analysing your activity diary
In this Step we’ll cover how to collate the information from your activity diary. To do this you’ll need to download the activity analysis worksheet. Collating your Activity Diary data …
Analysing your food diary
Over the last four weeks you have been invited to complete a diary of your food intake and activity levels. In the next few Steps we’ll look at how to …
Physical activity
As with our diet, it’s widely known that physical activity levels affect our health. Not only do activity levels impact on our energy balance – and thus weight – other …
Meet the expert: Professor David Leake
In this behind the scenes feature Professor David Leake discusses his role in the University of Reading teaching on a couple of the degree courses and researching atherosclerosis and cholesterol. …
These articles are from the online course:
Heart Health: A Beginner's Guide to Cardiovascular Disease