How about those twenty-year-olds from the new fitness, health and happiness network, the Greatist? Just because twenty-somethings gave us Facebook and Apple, do these youngers really think they can affect heart disease more than us fancy doctors? We are the experts. How could they? They don’t wear white coats or scrubs. They didn’t go to […]
Category: inflammation
About a year ago I wrote about the inflammation of business travel. My first-hand experience helped me understand why so many middle-aged jet-setters turn up with heart rhythm problems. Basically, I found out that life on the road serves up stress. Yesterday, I met business travel’s first cousin: taking your child to an over-scheduled all-day […]
As a bike-racing heart doctor who practices in one of America’s least healthy states, it pains me to say anything against exercise. I spend a great deal of my typical office day cajoling Kentuckians to exercise more. Sometimes, I even prescribe daily exercise rather than a medicine! “It’s OK to exercise every day that you […]
It’s hard to believe that turbulence could be a good thing for the heart. Consider how the word turbulent is defined: “characterized by conflict, disorder, or confusion; not controlled or calm.” Those traits don’t sound very heart-healthy. But when it comes to the heart rhythm, it turns out that a turbulent response—to a premature beat—is […]
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Happy Valentines Day
The good news is that the efficiency of modern living affords us many treasures, like Apple products and carbon-fibre bikes, for instance. The bad news is that this same modern-ness immerses us in a sea of inflammation. That’s unfortunate because more times than not, Heart Disease occurs as a result of excess inflammation. One of […]
December is always a busy time in the surgical waiting room. It’s all about the deductibles. An ice storm only made matters worse. Nerves were frayed. It was at the busy reception desk where I witnessed an irate family member of a post-op patient accost the friendly secretary. The patient was waiting in the recovery […]
Doctor’s Lounge: Thursdays It’s the time of the year when dietary temptations lurk around every corner of the hospital. And since completely abstaining is not always possible, the best antidote for this holiday deluge of inflammation is obvious: exercise. No doubt, within the boundaries of common sense, all exercise is good. But is there a best […]
“Hey…where did those cupcakes go?” Like a never-ending western North Carolina climb where each switchback reveals another uphill, and the finish is shielded by tall pines, the struggle to lose weight and to stay lean is incessant. In wrestling weight gain competitive cyclists share the same mat as ‘regular’ Americans. Like jockeys, all competitive bike […]
It is Wednesday. Time to write on a cycling topic. My home town, Louisville, KY, on the northern side of America’s obesity belt has shown some flickers of enlightenment these days. Labor day, we had the Mayor’s hike and bike. This drew 7500 cyclists and walkers. These twice yearly (Memorial and Labor Day) cycling events […]
This Wednesday it will be easy to combine cycling and medicine. So it was when I saw this prescient story that linked antagonistic personality traits and cardiovascular risk. It was simply impossible to ignore, especially on a Wednesday. Low hanging fruit, no doubt. It was an NIH sponsored study which looked at the effects of antagonistic […]
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Have a heart America…
As an American, I was proud when I heard the news. I grinned to myself. It was on my way to work, through a beautiful city park, with the sun rising over the hillside. The morning radio program reported the news that a California judge overturned their state’s ban on gay marriage. I know what you […]