Brooklyn College Physical Education and Exercise Science Professor Gets to the Heart of the Matter

Professor Christopher Dunbar

Is the stress test too stressful? In a typical treadmill test, subjects are made to exert themselves to a “maximal” level so that the electrocardiogram recording the electrical activity of the heart will be able to display the tell-tale evidence of coronary artery disease. Unfortunately, many people in need of a stress test are in poor health, suffer from arthritis, or are on drugs that corrupt the ECG readings, so the traditional type of test becomes less accurate.

Worse, studies have shown that approximately one in every 2,500 people who takes a stress test suffers a heart attack during the test!

Professor Christopher Dunbar, Physical Education and Exercise Science, was discussing this problem with Dr. Barry Saul at New York Methodist Hospital, and the conversation rolled around to a part of the ECG readout called the “P-wave.” “Physicians have traditionally used a section of the cardiogram called the ‘ST segment’ to detect coronary artery disease,” says Dunbar. “Dr. Saul and I have been researching the use of another section of the ECG, the P-wave. We did a study with 123 patients and found that changes in the P-wave are potentially a more accurate predictor of heart disease than the ST segment. Additionally, patients don’t need to work so hard on the treadmill to get an accurate result. This technique may also be more accurate than current methods for female patients and those taking several common classes of medication.”

The results were published this year in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the official journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, and presented at the organization’s annual conference in Indianapolis.

“Of course, when we started the project we thought we would find something completely different,” Dunbar says. “But that’s the way it is with science: You find these things when you are trying to find something else. But when you write it up you look like a genius!”