You know what befuddles me? Clinical nutrition confuses the heck out of me. The adjective ‘clinical’ implies that I’m talking about the medical aspects, the science of nutrition, not the basics. Of course, you know what constitutes basic nutrition. Everyone does. The simple rules seem well…so simple. (With JMM-to-patient commentary in italics.) Consume fewer calories. […]
Category: Healthy Living
How do doctors decide on treatments? How do you decide? And yes, you should decide! What inputs go into making this important decision? Let me make it simple. Basically, there are only four. (As they say in the Hamburg EP lab…â€It’s easy.â€) First, since I am an older doctor, I’ll start with… Risks: In deciding […]
Cardiac devices were in the news today. And you guessed it; the reports centered on problems. In this case the story includes dramatic visuals. The St Jude defibrillator wire, Riata, a commonly-used wire has been ‘recalled’ by the FDA because of electrical failures in at least 10% of cases. The dramatic part here includes the […]
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 the calendar arbitrarily marks the New Year, it’s normal for those who seek better health to make promises. Good ones like: I will exercise more. I will exercise smarter. Or, for many of the yet to be turned: I will start exercising. This is because most everyone understands the benefits of exercise. Specifically, it’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 […]
Here is a doc who has it going on… Dr Mike Evans hits it out of the park. (Stent-ers, listen with caution at 7:20) I am now a follower of Dr Mike Evens (@docmikeevans) Good job, Doc. JMM
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Is it possible?
I didn’t mean to see it. A daughter’s email, signed by a professor, not, “sent from my iPhone,” but rather a quote from influential essayist James Baldwin. The words, arrhythmically repeating in my head, like an AM-radio song. Why won’t it stop? “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed […]
I was delighted when my friend, Dr Kevin Pho, accepted my recent post on statin drugs. As a ‘student’ writer, I was also happy to read more than a couple ‘robust’ comments. No worries here, bike racers and heart docs have thick skin. I penned six responses on the KevinMD post. The gist of the […]
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, […]