Associated Professor
Email: lgracia@ugr.es
Luis Gracia Marco works as Associate Professor at the University of Granada (Spain). He joined the university in 2017 as postdoc researcher within the “Talent Identification Programme – UGR Fellows”, at the Faculty of Sport Sciences. Previously, he worked as Senior Lecturer within the Sport and Health Sciences Department at the University of Exeter (UK). Luis holds a BSc in Physical Education teaching (University of Zaragoza, Spain), a BSc in Sport and Health Sciences (University of Lleida, Spain) and an international PhD in Sports Medicine (University of Zaragoza, Spain). He has obtained recent grants as Principal Investigator in highly competitive international grants, such as Marie Skłodowska-Curie (funded by the European Commission), La Caixa Foundation and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. Currently, he is leading a research line in exercise oncology.
Luis´research is focused on understanding how exercise may benefit bone development. He is currently leading the research line “Exercise and Bone” in PROFITH.
His main research interests are Physical activity and body composition, exercise and bone health, exercise and cancer,assessment of physiological fragility.
Contribution: Principal investigator. In this study, with a longitudinal design, we evaluated the impact of 1 year of regular sports practice of very common sports on the health and geometry of the bones of the hip and lumbar spine, closely linked to the diagnosis of osteoporosis in adulthood. The findings had very important implications for obtaining a high peak bone mass in order to contribute to the prevention of bone diseases at older ages.
Contribution: Principal Investigator. Randomized controlled trial using a 9-month physical exercise intervention. We observed how athletes who regularly practiced low-impact sports, such as swimming and cycling, saw significant improvements in their bone mass. These results were very relevant and allowed us to carry out a transfer to sports clubs, especially low-impact sports (swimming and cycling) in order to include certain exercises based on jumps/impact in their training and promote adequate bone development during adolescence.
Contribution: This work includes 85 randomized controlled trials involving almost 7,000 people with cancer with the aim of synthesizing evidence from intervention studies to evaluate the effect of different types of exercise on health-related quality of life during and after cancer treatment. cancer.
Contribution: Principal Investigator. This study identified muscle strength deficits and associations of such deficits with lower bone mineral density in a sample of young pediatric cancer survivors. These findings show the importance of incorporating physical exercise plans in cancer survivors.
Contribution: Principal Investigator. This study uses compositional data analysis to show that any physical activity, even of low intensity, can be important in accelerating the bone regeneration process after childhood cancer.
