Mike Collis

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.90.5

Welcome to the first edition of Physiology News for 2013. This year is shaping up to be a busy and historic one for The Society, with relocation to Hodgkin Huxley House (see page 6), the launch of the new journal, Physiological Reports (interview with the editors on page 37), and the IUPS congress in Birmingham (preview on page 14).

A number of articles in this edition of PN relate to exercise, with differing views on the important question, is exercise good for you and inactivity a ‘disease’? There is, of course, convincing evidence from major population studies for lower all-cause mortality in those with higher activity levels or cardio-respiratory fitness. But what are the reasons for this and which is the chicken and which the egg? Whilst exercise can have beneficial effects on blood pressure and on biomarkers for atherosclerosis and diabetes, these only account for about 60% of the reduction in risk. Conversely, exercise can have adverse effects on these traditional biomarkers in some individuals. So what else is going on and are we measuring the right things? Exercise has numerous additional effects that could be beneficial for the cardiovascular system some of which are known, e.g. increased vagal tone, pre-conditioning and improved endothelial function. So perhaps we need a new set of biomarkers to assess these. What is important for me and you is whether population-based studies can be applied to all, or do genetic variations mean that ‘therapeutic’ exercise regimes need to be tailored for each individual. New multidisciplinary collaborative projects are being set up to answer some of these important questions. In the meantime I will continue to exercise. Whether walking, cycling, swimming, etc, extend my life or not, they do make me feel fitter, livelier and happier. Quality of life is surely at least as important as length.

Last year Physiology News was redesigned. The editorial board of Physiology News have been very active considering how the magazine has developed and our objectives for its future. The main purpose of Physiology News is to be enjoyable, useful and informative for our Members. We also hope that it reaches those who have an interest in physiology but who are not Members (perhaps it will encourage them to join!). Finally, we hope that the magazine will make complex topics in and around physiology accessible to students, researchers and teachers of biological sciences. We think that the redesign of Physiology News has helped us towards these goals, but we can make further headway in some areas and are, with every meeting of the editorial board, honing our approach. Whilst we believe that content is much more important than presentation, a constant source of debate amongst the editorial board is our use of imagery. Ideally, we would like to have images that show physiologists at work or images of physiological science. It is difficult to access high quality images of this type and this is an area where Members may be able to help us by submitting appropriate material (see page 7 for our pilot photography competition).

We recently ran our first themed issue (education, PN89). Our summer issue this year will have an international theme (to coincide with the IUPS meeting) and autumn will have an industry theme, exploring what it is like to work in industry, how to collaborate with industry and whether it is possible to move from the academic sector into industry and vice-versa. We are keen to have content direct from Members – article proposals, but also responses to articles in PN, or to developments in physiology. PN should be a forum for discussion around practice and policy in physiology. So email us if you might like to contribute.

Finally, ‘Feedback is the breakfast of champions’, as they say, and we have had some very useful comments on the magazine from a few Members of The Society. But we want more. We welcome your feedback at any time, but right now The Society is running a membership survey (page 7) and I look forward very much to seeing your opinions of Physiology News.