Heart Warriors: U of A researcher seeks the impacts of maternal age on heart health with the Heart & Stroke Foundation’s help

A University of Alberta researcher was one of five researchers at the University of Alberta to receive a grant from the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Craig Steinback, an associate professor in the faculty of kinesiology, sport, and recreation, is a recipient of the 2021-2022 Grant-In-Aid program. This provides funding for “important, pertinent, and novel research in the area of heart disease and stroke” over three years. 

“[I’m thankful to] the Heart & Stroke [Foundation] for their support,” Steinback said. “They do a lot of work raising money for these important areas of research. So very, very happy to be supported by them.”

The project the Heart & Stroke Foundation is funding explores how the age of mothers, especially older mothers, influences the structure, function, and control of the cardiovascular system which includes the heart and blood vessels.

In pregnancy, the body goes through many changes and sometimes, different disorders, such as those involving the cardiovascular system. Even after pregnancy, the cardiovascular issues which occur during pregnancy can have consequences later on in the woman’s life and also for the baby. The chances of these complications increases as the woman’s age during pregnancy increases.

“If you look at pregnancy as a physiological state, we’re all the product of a successful pregnancy,” Steinback said.  “It’s a really fascinating, physiological transition for a woman. Everything changes, even in a healthy pregnancy … but we know that a portion of pregnancies are going to be complicated.”

According to Steinback, the age of mothers is increasing. There are many reasons for this, one of which is that mothers are pursuing careers and delaying motherhood for a period of time. The purpose of this project is to understand how the internal mechanisms — the physiology — of these older mothers are different from younger mothers and whether this could lead to the increases in cardiovascular disease.

Steinback wants to emphasize that even though he is the principal investigator — the main person in charge of a research project — that “it’s truly a team project.” 

He is working with Margie Davenport, another associate professor in the faculty of kinesiology, sport, and recreation, Dr. Christy-Lynn Cooke, lecturer in the faculty of medicine and dentistry in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and Sandra Davidge, the executive director of the Women and Children’s Health Research Institute (WCHRI) and professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology and adjunct professor in the department of physiology at the U of A.

“We forged a collaboration around trying to really marry the detailed work that [Dr. Cooke and Davidge] can do in animal models and isolated vessels and some of that physiology and tie that to what myself and Davenport can do in the area of integrated human physiology, with the idea of really trying to do a bench to bedside project,” Steinback said. 

Steinback described not always being sure of what he would do as a career.

“If I’m honest, at the undergraduate level, I was a little bit aimless; I was exploring my options,” he said. “I had the fortune of volunteering within a research lab … and the exposure of the research that was going on and good mentorship as well, I thought that [research] was going to be the direction for me.”

“I still say I don’t know what I’m going to be when I grow up.”

When it comes to research, Steinback says that it is important to be curious and to ask questions.

“I always stress that I think it’s more important to have questions than to have answers,” he said.

“Ask questions, ask why, ask how. If you start there, then you can go pretty much anywhere you’d like.“