What could competitive athletes teach a group of heart rhythm specialists? Cyclists, runners and yes, even triathletes, know something that we wizards too often forget. I’ll tell you what it is in good time. Keep reading. I just returned from a giant gathering of heart rhythm doctors. It was, as all national meetings are, an […]
CW: When old (primordial) news makes big news.
It’s 2012 already. Time flies; doesn’t it? It seems like just yesterday when… I started this business more than two decades ago. A time when cell phones hadn’t even graced James Bond movies; we got up to change the channel on TV and the world health concern of the moment was a Hunger Games-like scenario […]
Saying No to the Polypill
The tweet said that experts were debating the merits of a polypill? I had to click that link. Yes. I was right; there were actually “eminent” cardiologists suggesting that a pill containing 4 different medicines (a statin, aspirin, beta-blocker and an ACE-inhibitor) “might change the face of cardiovascular medicine.” The direct quote from Dr Salim […]
Happiness: the fourth leg of heart health
He was dressed causally in jeans, a loosely collared shirt and a near perfect tan, as if it was happily acquired outdoors, not in a tanning booth. This Monday morning on GMA, Dan Buettner, a member of the crazed ultra-endurance cycling fraternity sat before millions of viewers, with the perfectly coiffed George Stephanopoulus, and proclaimed […]
Liquid plumber, Pacman and Heart disease…The Anacetrapib story
It beats 100,000 times per day. It pumps liters of blood per minute. If it stops, you stop, in about six seconds. For the human heart to contract this reliably, without hiccups, it requires a steady stream of nutrients. A healthy heart has clean pipes. There are two ways to keep pipes clear of blockage. […]
Get smart
As if we need more evidence that schools should bring back daily gym class. Researchers at the University of Illinois studied 9-10 year-old children with MRIs (no radiation exposure), VO2 treadmill testing, and memory evaluations. Their findings should spank those in the educational elite who give regular gym class only lip service. “Dr M, you […]
Statins are so misunderstood…
The medical assistant who checked the patient in tells me, “Dr Mandrola, this guy had coronary artery disease since the 1980’s. He is 90 years-old now, and his only medicines are that statin and aspirin.” One of the more common questions that arises in cardiology is whether a person should take a statin drug. Despite […]
If I was Surgeon General…
I would follow the lead of our country’s first Mom. This is serious folks. We, as an American society, need to solve the obesity crisis. Not just for our physical health, but for our country’s financial stability. Reducing the spiraling costs of health care is wanted by all. So far, prevention of the diseases which […]
Medical innovation cannot cure fatness…
Possessing great intelligence is not a guarantee for being right. Judges and professors are surely smart, but the quagmire that is the obesity epidemic can fell the smartest of the smart. So it is when a professor of public policy and a famous federal circuit judge, author and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago […]
Wonder pill versus good choices…
I need help. In dealing with obesity as a medical problem, that is. I am pretty solid at arrhythmia management, but as an obesity doctor, not so much. If I was the teacher, and my obese patients were the students, I would surely be fired for poor student test performance. At least, if the core measure […]
In heart health, we need more than just education…
Everyone knows that the heart health of Americans is dismal. Obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure are all on the rise. For now, technological advances in cardiac care continue to maintain, or in some cases, lower the death rate from heart disease. Squishing blockages, ablating abnormal heart tissue, and installing cardiac devices have successfully kept […]
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