How could it have happened? He was strong; do you remember how he could get uphill? He was fit; can you ever recall seeing him out of shape? His blood pressure was perfect, low even. He bragged about his exemplary cholesterol levels. He was lean and mean. Wait a minute…what was that about being mean? […]
Search: “inflammation”
We found 140 results for your search.
<Apologies in advance: this post is a (major) re-write of an old post.> Heart rhythm doctors are trained observers. We spend our days focusing on minute squiggles which are timed in milliseconds. It’s all a lot of observation. It’s only natural that one’s work skills might spill over to normal life. Plumbers are handy around […]
Few sporting events cause more inflammation than the Tour de France. It’s long, fast, tiring, and stressful. These facts are not news, and neither are crashes. By now, many of you have seen or heard that crashes have marred the first week of this year’s Tour. Even before the first day in the mountains, potential […]
Reports documenting the dangers of Non-Steroidal-Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) continue to generate headlines. It’s a steady stream of bad news for patients who take these widely-available pain relievers. Sorry about the repetition folks, but it’s hard to ignore my daily email updates from the American College of Cardiology when they so directly pertain to endurance athletes. […]
Medical people know that July is a pivotal month. Things change, big time. In the academic world, July 1st is the day when graduated medical students wake up as doctors. Well, at least officially an intern is a doctor. I seem to remember internship feeling like a demotion. In my world of private practice, July […]
The Biology of Omega-3 fatty acids: (Just a little science:) When fish, flax-seeds or Brussels sprouts pass through the intestine, pancreatic enzymes transform the fat to free fatty acids. These acids are quickly taken up by the cells. Once in the cell, these fatty acids enter the mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum and cytosol–places that you might […]
It’s been awhile since I have written about the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). I would like to remedy this by sharing a few thoughts on three recent stories about AF: one involved a soon-to-be-approved blood-thinning drug; the second highlighted a potentially exciting new device for ablating AF, and the third story irresponsibly sensationalized the […]
It’s funny how coincidence works in medicine. A number of patients, and a couple of cyclists, have recently asked me about the worthiness of omega-3 supplements. And there it was today when I checked the mail: a comprehensive review article on n-3 Fatty Acids in Cardiovascular Disease, in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. […]
A very accomplished colleague of mine once mused—about an athletic patient with a heart problem: “John…the guy is only a cyclist…It’s not like riding a bike is that hard.” I wanted to call him to the EP lab to feel how the heart of an endurance athlete rocks the catheter that you hold in your […]
A very accomplished colleague of mine once mused—about an athletic patient with a heart problem: “John…the guy is only a cyclist…It’s not like riding a bike is that hard.” I wanted to call him to the EP lab to feel how the heart of an endurance athlete rocks the catheter that you hold in your […]
My quest for low inflammation hit a speed bump recently. Usually patients uplift me. But… How would you have reacted if a patient asked you to write a prescription for aspirin? You might answer as I did: aspirin is available over the counter, and at very low cost. …“But if you write a prescription the […]