Dear colleague,

We would like to invite you to the latest of our Oxford Mindfulness Centre seminars, ‘Mindfulness and cardiovascular disease risk: state of the evidence, plausible mechanisms, and theoretical framework’ with Dr. Eric Loucks, to be held at the OMC on 20 April at 1pm. We are delighted to welcome Eric to Oxford for this seminar.

OMC
POWIC/SANE Building
Warneford Hospital
OX3 7JX

Mindfulness and cardiovascular disease risk: state of the evidence, plausible mechanisms, and theoretical framework
The first wave of mindfulness research is suggesting potentially positive impacts on psychological health. A second wave is beginning to suggest that mindfulness may improve aspects of physical health. However, the theoretical framework and mechanistic evidence for exactly how mindfulness could influence physical health remains sparsely discussed. Cardiovascular disease (CVD), an expression of physical health, remains the primary cause of mortality in the United States and world-wide.

This talk will provide: (1) a synopsis on relations of mindfulness with CVD and major CVD risk factors (including physical activity, smoking, diet, obesity, blood pressure, and diabetes regulation), and (2) an initial consensus-based overview of mechanisms and theoretical framework by which mindfulness might influence CVD (including attention control, emotion regulation and self-awareness).

Dr. Eric Loucks
Dr. Loucks is an Assistant Professor at Brown University in the School of Public Health. He has held teaching positions at Harvard University, McGill University and Brown University. Dr. Loucks has over 70 peer-reviewed publications, and focuses his research on identifying biological mechanisms by which social factors such as mindfulness, education, and early life adversity may influence cardiovascular disease. Dr. Loucks has generated research findings that have helped to better understand how biological factors such as inflammatory markers, epigenetics, blood pressure, obesity, and lipids, amongst others, may be important mechanisms through which social factors could influence cardiovascular disease. This has led to wide coverage of research findings in outlets such as TIME Magazine and BBC News. He is now increasingly moving into practical applications of the work, including randomized controlled trials of mindfulness interventions to reduce social disparities in cardiovascular disease.

All are welcome to attend

@OMC_mindfulness
www.oxfordmindfulness.org

Follow Oxford Mindfulness Centre on Facebook, Twitter and Youtube