• Poor sleep linked to high blood pressure

    Updated: 2011-08-30 22:00:00
    Older men who regularly miss out on deep, restorative sleep have an 80 percent increased risk of developing high blood pressure, according to a study out this week in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension. Researchers used in-home sleep monitors...

  • Can a little chocolate cut your heart disease and stroke risk?

    Updated: 2011-08-30 15:00:00
    People who eat higher amounts of chocolate have a significantly lower risk of heart disease—37 percent lower, in fact—than those who consume less of the confection, according to a large-scale review published this week in the British Medical Journal. The...

  • On the verge of a nervous breakdown (Part I)

    Updated: 2011-08-26 00:06:36
    I wish I had some good news for you.  Buried in the dog days of summer, a series of very troubling reports have surfaced which threatens the very core of our medical system. Let’s start with shortages.  It has become common place in the hospital to see signs in the nursing stations admonishing the physicians to [...]

  • All catheterizations are not created equal Part II

    Updated: 2011-08-24 02:30:57
    In my last blog, I wrote about the rates of normal catheterizations and the overall importance of this to hospitals, patients and our healthcare system. Roughly 175,000 patients with no known coronary disease are subjected to cardiac catheterization each year.   On the face of it one would think that it should be easy to avoid normal [...]

  • Happy marriage, healthy heart

    Updated: 2011-08-22 23:30:00
    The song goes “love will keep us together,” but love can help keep you alive after heart bypass surgery, too, suggests a study published online today in the journal Health Psychology. It found that happily married people who underwent coronary...

  • Free screenings available to all ages at upcoming Health Summit

    Updated: 2011-08-22 21:58:24
    A variety of free health screenings will be available to Central Florida residents of all ages at the ninth annual  Caribbean Health Summit, Saturday, Sept. 10. Participants can have free screenings for blood pressure, body mass index, HIV, syphilis, blood glucose and PSA (prostate antigen) levels. Digital rectal exams, mammograms (by appointment) and Pap smears will also be [...]

  • All catheterizations are not created equal Part I

    Updated: 2011-08-18 20:13:59
    Photo from: www.webmd.com In keeping with recent assaults on our skill set as physicians, we now have the results of a study again using our database which shows that we as cardiologists are not very good at deciding which patients benefit from a cardiac catheterization and which patients do not.  This seems to be true whether [...]

  • What not to do during an MI Part II

    Updated: 2011-08-16 22:30:53
    In my last blog I went through a brief history of angioplasty and MI.  Published in J Am Coll Cardiol, 2011; 58:692-703 is a Meta-Analysis titled Culprit Vessel only vs. Multivessel and Staged PCI for Multivessel Disease in Patients Presenting with ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction. This article details that 40%-65% of patients presenting with myocardial infarction [...]

  • When good cholesterol turns bad

    Updated: 2011-08-14 11:09:22
    Increasing levels of circulating HDL (“good cholesterol”) has been targeted as an important therapeutic goal in reducing the risk of patients with coronary disease.  HDL has been shown to have a variety of potentially beneficial effects including cholesterol efflux from foam cells, promotion of endothelial repair mechanisms and stimulation of the enzyme eNOS to increase [...]

  • Chronic NSAID use increases mortality from cardiovascular disease

    Updated: 2011-08-14 10:59:43
    Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are effective and extensively used pain-killers, particularly in the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal problems.  However, doubts about their safety in patients with coronary disease have surfaced, particularly since the NSAID-like COX1 inhibitor, rofecoxib, was withdrawn from the market after a demonstrated  increase in cardiovascular events.  Despite these concerns, compelling data on [...]

  • Just do it

    Updated: 2011-08-12 01:35:52
    A question that I am often asked is, “How much exercise should I do?”  The answer is simple and is again brought to the forefront by a recent meta analysis published online in Circulation which is the journal of the American Heart Association.  It was published at Circ 2011;DOI: 10. 1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.110.010710 and is titled “Dose [...]

  • Low vitamin D levels linked to subclinical atherosclerosis

    Updated: 2011-08-09 17:26:38
    In recent epidemiological studies, 25-hydroxyvitamin D deficiency has been identified as a novel cardiovascular risk factor.  However, the mechanisms by which vitamin D deficiency affect cardiovascular risk remain unclear. To investigate this relationship further, Carrelli et al. examined data from 203 adults in the Northern Manhattan Study (mean age 68; range 50-93 years).  All participants had [...]

  • What not to do during an MI Part I

    Updated: 2011-08-09 16:41:07
    Photo from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001246/ - In the almost 30 years I have been performing angioplasty, much has changed.  Then again even though techniques have improved in some cases, not much has changed. I was present at the beginning.  In 1983 the first TIMI study was performed, and I helped with the study.  Much of my enthusiasm for research dates [...]

  • Omega-3 fatty acid levels and congestive heart failure

    Updated: 2011-08-07 10:53:50
    Long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have previously been associated with a reduced risk of coronary death, however their effect on other cardiovascular outcomes – such as congestive heart failure (CHF) – are less well established.  As CHF is one of the leading causes of hospitalisations, novel targets for its prevention are a priority. In this study [...]

  • MRI study gives new insights into stress (takotsubo) cardiomyopathy

    Updated: 2011-08-07 10:01:40
    Stress Cardiomyopathy (SC), originally described as takotsubo, is characterised by severe – but reversible – impairment of left ventricular function in the absence of significant coronary artery disease.  The vast majority of patients present with symptoms similar to those of an acute coronary syndrome, and tend to have good outcomes despite the initial severity of [...]

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