Laval establishes international chair on cardiometabolic risk

Quebec City, QC – Laval University has launched what it says is the first international and multidisciplinary chair on cardiometabolic risk. The chair’s objective is to promote scientific research on prevention, evaluation, and management of patients at high risk of developing a cardiometabolic disease.

Dr Jean-Pierre Despres, Laval professor and director of research in cardiology at Laval Hospital Research Center, is the chair’s scientific director. “The mission of the chair is to highlight the growing problem we call cardiometabolic risk,” he says. “The chair will provide a platform for integrated research into cardiometabolic risk to define a set of risk factors and markers that will allow physicians to develop strategies to better assess and manage this risk.”

Cardiometabolic risk describes the overall risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. It combines classical risk factors such as smoking, high cholesterol, and hypertension with a more recently identified set of factors closely related to a specific form of overweight: abdominal obesity. When simultaneously present in a patient, these cardiometabolic risk factors are strongly predictive of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

In addition to Dr Desprs, the chair’s board of experts includes multidisciplinary scientists Bryan Brewer (Washington Hospital Center), Peter Libby (Harvard Medical School), Philip Barter (Heart Research Institute, Sydney), and Jean-Claude Coubard as executive director.