Gustavo Almeida, PhD. is an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at UT Health San Antonio.
"I'm originally from Brazil. I started my career working with athletes —soccer players, UFC, MMA fighters. It was an amazing job, but I felt that I was just doing too little," he said.
Almeida wanted to do research, and his journey ultimately led him here, where he’s studying blood flow restriction exercise to see if it will improve outcomes for people awaiting total knee replacements.
"And so you place the cuffs around the upper thigh, and you inflate them to the point that people have only 20% of their blood flow going to their legs, and that boosts their metabolic processes. And that has shown to improve muscle function, muscle growth, muscle strength."
In his current study, Almeida found that nine of 13 patients doing exercise while their blood flow was restricted gained function before surgery and maintained those gains afterward.
"So that's really like a wow moment for me," he said.
This type of exercise has potential beyond those getting knee replacements.
"In healthy older adults, one group did blood flow restriction training without any weights — just the blood flow restriction training — and in comparison to high resistance training, they had comparable results," he said.
So the restricted group got the same results with less effort.
Science & Medicine is a collaboration between TPR and The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio that explores how scientific discovery in San Antonio advances the way medicine is practiced everywhere.
