“I felt amazing…It was one of those days on a bike you dream of.†There’s one thing about cyclists; we like to recall memorable performances. It’s as if retelling—and I say re-telling because any good performance has no doubt been told at least once—jolts our feel-good centers. I bet it’s the same chemicals that get […]
Category: Cycling Wed
Wednesday musings on all things cycling-related
Tonight, I’d like to try to clear something up. I write a lot about inflammation. I use the term loosely and by so doing, I risk being imprecise. Sorry about that. (I’m far more precise with an ablation catheter than words on a blog.) My reason to focus on inflammation stems from my belief that […]
Yesterday, I wrote about how stem cells might some day offer heart patients a mulligan. But even the most optimistic optimist would agree that realizing this dream is futuristic. For now, and the near future, we have to play them where they lie. In real-life, do-overs for heart attacks and strokes happen only on rare […]
Imagine. Imagine the inflammation that the endurance-athletic community would have been spared? If only Pheidippides had lived. I mean, what was the rush? The battle had already been won. Athenians could have waited another few hours (or days) for the good word on the battle of Marathon. It’s not like someone was tweeting in 490 […]
Important challenge to dogma alert: You may have heard that high cholesterol leads to heart disease. Most experts accept the important role that cholesterol plays in heart disease: High cholesterol, particularly LDL (the bad kind), favors build up of plaque, which then leads to obstructed arteries and heart attack. It’s simple. It makes sense. Even […]
Do you own a car? A TV? If so, you may be at risk of a heart attack? Or at least so says this most recent study of many thousands of patients, across 52 countries. (You can breathe now; they didn’t look at the risk of iProducts.) The INTERHEART study, published this week in the […]
As a heart doctor, I frequently counsel patients on the importance of regular exercise. The problem with this discussion is that it often devolves from heart physiology to life coaching. And most heart doctors have not been trained in life coaching. Heck, many of us have trouble coaching ourselves. But maybe this blog affords an […]
As the year ends, the temptation builds to a crescendo. I don’t break the rule often, but I just can’t help myself tonight. A top-12 list? I know that succumbing to temptation implies weakness. Top-anything lists are surely not very literary, intellectual or hard-edged. But reflecting on cycling in the midst of winter when one […]
It is risky. Stay fresh. Avoid repeating yourself. Don’t rant. Never preach. These would be the ‘rules’ of supposedly good blogs. And, of course, doctors that dare to take a stance on health issues risk being perceived as pretentious. I get this. So it is with trepidation that I write a follow-up to last week’s […]
Dear Endurance Athletes, Accept an apology in advance. You have endured so much from me. Sorry. Let’s at least start by agreeing that I can’t control the data. Yes, you guessed it. There is unfortunately more bad news pertaining to the deleterious effects of endurance exercise on the human heart. Again, I am sorry. Maybe […]
Patients often ask what’s more important: exercise or losing weight? As winter rolls through the Northern Hemisphere, maintaining fitness seems a timely and relevant topic. Heck, maintaining or gaining fitness should always be a relevant matter! A recently published study seems worth a comment on Cycling Wednesday. In this math-heavy publication in the journal, Circulation, […]