• Startling reduction in Heart Attack Deaths in Wartime Norway

    Updated: 2012-02-02 21:39:58
    This is a fascinating case study that brings relevant evidence pertinent to heart disease directly to the forefront. It should serve as a convincing argument about why people suffer from heart attacks, and also act as a guide on how to avoid them, which is the primary reason that the ‘Lower Blood Pressure’ website exists. [...]

  • Sound bites that hurt (Part IV)

    Updated: 2012-02-02 21:06:04
    Now let’s move from sound bites to full-fledged out-and-out incredible.  I will cop to the fact that I generally don’t watch TV and never commercials since I record everything I watch.  News I get from the sites that I read on the web.  When I want a laugh, I will watch some Fox “News” in [...]

  • Sound bites that hurt (Part III)

    Updated: 2012-01-31 21:53:29
    When new drugs arrive on the scene, especially one as anticipated as Pradaxa, there is an initial enthusiasm and then the “beer goggles” wear off.  There is generally a surge and ebb with drugs as they are used in “the real world.” This is a constant problem with randomized clinical trials.  The sponsors want them [...]

  • SCIPIO: Stem cells improve ischaemic cardiomyopathy

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:56:51
    Ischaemic heart disease remains the leading cause of heart failure in the Western World, and its prevalence continues to rise. Despite marked advances in the treatment of heart failure, heart muscle death remains irreversible.  However, over the last decade the concept of the heart as a terminally differentiated organ has been refuted, and this has [...]

  • ADHD medications and cardiovascular events

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:56:15
    Adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are often treated with stimulants such as mephyphenidates and amphetamines, and additionally with a newer non-stimulant agent, atomoxetine.  Placebo-controlled studies have shown that all of these drugs are capable of increasing systolic and diastolic blood pressure in addition to heart rate.  However, no clinical trial to date has been large [...]

  • Long-term efficacy and safety of statins

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:55:05
    Alth0ugh an overwhelming amount of evidence now points towards the beneficial effects of statins, most of the large statin studies have only had 5-year follow-up and there have been observational studies that have suggested a long-term increased risk of particular types of cancer, and of other non-vascular morbidity and mortality. The 20,536 patients in the Heart [...]

  • Biodegradable polymer stent shows promise in LEADERS

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:53:57
    Drug eluting stents have reduced restenosis rates, and the need for further revascularisation after stenting, despite initial concerns over late stent thrombosis. This complication has been attributed to chronic inflammation and neoatherosclerosis induced by the durable polymers used in these stents. Biodegradable stents have been hypothesised to reduce this inflammatory burden, by degrading to leave [...]

  • Cardiac arrest in marathon runners investigated

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:48:57
    Despite the increasingly sedentary nature of society, one participation sport that is thriving is long-distance running with approximately 2 million people participating in marathon or half-marathons in the United States annually. Tragically, this increase in participants has led to an increase in reports of race-related cardiac arrests and in this study by Kim et al [...]

  • Subclinical AF significantly increases stroke risk

    Updated: 2012-01-29 22:43:32
    Approximately 25% of all strokes are of unknown cause, and it has long been hypothesised that short subclinical episodes of atrial fibrillation (AF) may be an important common etiologic factor.  While several studies have attempted to detect episodes of subclinical AF, most have been hampered by the infrequency of such episodes and the unlikelihood of [...]

  • Sound bites that hurt (Part II)

    Updated: 2012-01-26 21:19:29
    As I wrote in my last blog, this paradoxical result of patients developing diabetes taking a statin is not news to us.  Published in Lancet in 2010 (Lancet2010; DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61965-6) is a meta-analysis of this issue. A meta-analysis is not a study, but it can provide important information and hypothesis-generating work.  Randomized clinical trials can then [...]

  • 50% Reduction in Heart Attack Instances in the United Kingdom

    Updated: 2012-01-26 08:37:04
    Here’s some great news about heart attacks and strokes for a change.   The British Heart Foundation has released new statistics in January 2012 that show a 50% reduction in the number of heart attacks suffered by people in the United Kingdom over the period from 2002 to 2012.   Furthermore, of those who do suffer [...]

  • For the healthy, risks of daily aspirin may outweigh benefits

    Updated: 2012-01-25 05:30:28
    One of every five U.S. adults over age 18, and almost half of those over age 65, take a daily low-dose aspirin in the hope of preventing heart attacks and strokes, although many have never experienced either condition. Now, a...

  • Sound bites that hurt (Part 1)

    Updated: 2012-01-25 01:18:02
    I knew it was going to be a long day when I started to get messages that statins cause diabetes. There is an adage in TV journalism that “if it bleeds, it leads.”  The more grotesque something can be made the better.  Partial truths in medicine do not count.  This is not Presidential politics.  Patients [...]

  • The deadly conversation (Part 2)

    Updated: 2012-01-19 22:27:40
    In my last blog, I began writing about how the discussion of a death with the loved ones can engender a myocardial infarction.  The fact that it happens is not much of a surprise.  The results of this study, however, are quite a surprise, and that is why it was published in a prestigious journal [...]

  • The deadly conversation (Part 1)

    Updated: 2012-01-17 22:49:55
    We will all die.  As they say (and you all know who they are), the only things certain are death and taxes.  I can say without hesitation that the hardest situation anyone finds themselves in is when that individual has to tell someone about a death.  I can tell those of you who have not [...]

  • What would you do?

    Updated: 2012-01-12 23:42:06
    Medical research is broken down into three basic types.  The first is pure research, which occurs in a lab and starts with testing in small and then larger animals.  The second is first in man studies where the substance is given to human volunteers to test toxicity.  Sometimes these are healthy subjects, and sometimes because [...]

  • The fourth night is free Part II

    Updated: 2012-01-10 21:55:14
    Often, a study is done for one thing, and it turns out to be provocative for another reason.  The Assessment of Pexelizumab in Acute Myocardial Infarction was done to prove that the drug pexelizumab, which is an antioxidant, would decrease damage in patients who sustained a myocardial infarction.  I was one of the investigators in [...]

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