CO8: MOVE-IT: Empowering Health Through Physical Activity, Exercise, and Nutrition

The MOVE-IT research group is composed of young researchers, most of whom are in the field of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences, as well as researchers in Physical Therapy, all of whom have joined the UCA in the last 8 years.

The research group focuses primarily on studying ways to improve and maintain health through lifestyle habits such as nutrition, physical activity, and exercise. It also covers the fields of athletic performance and exercise physiology, in addition to conducting collaborative research with industry to facilitate knowledge transfer in this area.

The members of the MOVE-IT research Team t have a high rate of scientific output (>300 articles in the last 10 years), participate in national and international research Projects (>30 in the last 10 years), and lead research Projects s and secure competitive public funding (6 Projects, >1,100,000€ in the last 5 years). Regarding the group’s training capacity, the group’s Team of doctoral advisors is currently supervising a total of 16 doctoral dissertations in progress, with expected completion dates in 3–4 years.

The group’s doctors are renowned speakers in their field, delivering invited presentations at various national and international events and conferences. This group shares a common philosophy of contributing to science through hard work, excellence, impact, and collaboration, while fostering camaraderie, respect, and a shared love of science among friends.

Responsible researcher

David Jiménez Pavón:
- E-mail: david.jimenez@uca.es
- ORCID: 0000-0002-8977-4744

Lines of research

Line 1: Physical Activity, Exercise, and Nutrition in Individuals at Risk for Mild Cognitive Impairment and/or Alzheimer’s Disease. The MOVE-IT group is leading this innovative line of research, funded by the National Plan (RETOS-2016), with the goal of analyzing the effect of a supervised physical exercise program on cognitive, brain (MRI), and metabolomic parameters in older adults at risk for mild cognitive impairment (Prof. Ana Carbonell-Baeza and David Jiménez-Pavón).
Line 2: Lifestyle habits, exercise, and active/healthy aging. Complementing Line 1, the MOVE-IT group leads this innovative line of research with funding from various public entities, such as the ITI-FEDER funds from the Regional Government of Andalusia (2017) and the European Commission’s ERASMUS+SPORT program (2018). The goal is to describe and analyze the effect of supervised physical exercise on markers of aging and frailty in people over 65, while also examining, at the European level, how healthy lifestyle habits promote healthy aging (Prof. Ana Carbonell-Baeza and David Jiménez-Pavón).
Line of Research 3: Outdoor Activities as a Means of Promoting Physical and Mental Health. The research group is conducting this line of research with funding from a project by the Regional Ministry of Health (2018), which aims to study the effect of a program of outdoor activities on the physical and mental health and hormonal parameters of people with moderate depression (Prof. Vanesa España-Romero).
Line 4: Physical activity, exercise, and nutrition in people who are overweight, obese, or have diabetes. The group has a proven track record, Publications , and has developed several Projects at UCA in recent years (UCA’s own research program; industry-university collaboration contracts), in which it aims to investigate how lifestyle habits (physical activity and nutrition) and various exercise programs can improve the metabolic profile and health of people who are overweight, obese, and/or have diabetes (Prof. Jesús G. Ponce-González and David Jiménez-Pavón).
Line 5: Athletic Performance, Exercise Physiology, and Health. Originally, the researchers who founded the MOVE-IT group were trained and specialized in exercise physiology related to the field of athletic performance (climbing, Team sports, endurance sports, strength training, etc.). As a result, they continue to maintain ties with certain external research projects in this sector, and the group also leads a world-renowned line of research on climbing, performance, and physiology (Prof. Vanesa España-Romero).

Keywords

# Physical Activity / Exercise
# Nutrition
# Dementia
# Aging
# Depression
# Mental Health
# Obesity

CO8: MOVE-IT: Empowering Health Through Physical Activity, Exercise, and Nutrition

Responsible researcher

David Jiménez Pavón:

University professor.

E-mail: david.jimenez@uca.es
ORCID: 0000-0002-8977-4744

Members of the Team

Principal Investigators:
- David Jiménez Pavón (PI).
Researchers:
- Ana Carbonell Baeza.
- Miguel Ángel Rosety Rodríguez.
- Vanesa España Romero.
- Verónica Pérez Cabezas.
- Alejandro Galán Mercant.
- Rubén Aragón Martín.
- Ivan Hoditx Martín Costa.
- Justin Alfaro Fernández.

CO8: MOVE-IT: Empowering Health Through Physical Activity, Exercise, and Nutrition

Production

Find all of the group's publications ( Projects, Patents , and Publications) on the I+Salud Portal of the Andalusian Public Health System:

CO8: MOVE-IT: Empowering Health Through Physical Activity, Exercise, and Nutrition

Networks

This groupis an active participant in the following groups: Networks:

CIBERFES—ISCIII. Biomedical Research Network Center for Frailty and Healthy Aging

Visit the website: https://www.ciberfes.es/

EXERNET. Research Network on Physical Exercise and Health

Visit the website: https://redexernet.com/

HEALTHY-AGE. Network for Active Aging, Exercise, and Health

Visit the website: https://www.healthyagenet.org/es/