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General Medicine Health Care Healthy Living

Medical innovation cannot cure fatness…

Possessing great intelligence is not a guarantee for being right. Judges and professors are surely smart, but the quagmire that is the obesity epidemic can fell the smartest of the smart.  So it is when a professor of public policy and a famous federal circuit judge, author and senior lecturer at the University of Chicago […]

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Health Care Healthy Living

Wonder pill versus good choices…

I need help.  In dealing with obesity as a medical problem, that is. I am pretty solid at arrhythmia management, but as an obesity doctor, not so much.  If I was the teacher, and my obese patients were the students, I would surely be fired for poor student test performance. At least, if the core measure […]

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Cycling Stuff Cycling Wed Reflection

Cycling Wednesdays: #7: How many pegs do you hang your self-esteem on?

“Older” athletes often ask me what else they can do to prevent heart disease.  As, by virtue of their athletic lifestyle, most have none of the usual cardiac risk factors.  High blood pressure, smoking, diabetes and obesity are infrequent concerns for the competitive athlete. A more vexing, and highly intangible problem for those who compete […]

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Healthy Living

Get faster on the bike by watching Golf: Low T?

Cyclists don’t usually watch much golf. I was simply flipping channels when the commercial jumped out at me. The volume was down low when the tired looking, drilled-out middle-aged guy appears. He looks like many of my male AF patients.  Then, next to this especially pale-skinned dumpy looking guy, the words appear… “Do you have […]

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General Cardiology General Medicine Healthy Living inflammation

Statin drugs are much more than cholesterol lowering agents…

Statin drugs are in the news.  The real truth is coming out. The truth that statin drugs (Zocor, Lipitor, Crestor are a few of the more recognizable names) are much more than simple cholesterol lowering agents. This very informative WSJ piece presents the thesis–first published by renowned experts in the Annals of Internal Medicine this […]

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Health Care Healthy Living

In heart health, we need more than just education…

Everyone knows that the heart health of Americans is dismal. Obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure are all on the rise. For now, technological advances in cardiac care continue to maintain, or in some cases, lower the death rate from heart disease. Squishing blockages, ablating abnormal heart tissue, and installing cardiac devices have successfully kept […]

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Healthy Living Nutrition

Surprising revelations from Cardiology leaders…

Six hundred seventy dollars per year is the cost for my membership to the American College of Cardiology. With this comes the bimonthly Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). This May’s edition of JACC features two incredibly comment-able pieces. Exhibit A, in the better late than never category, is Dr Anthony DeMaria’s piece […]

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Athletic heart Cycling Stuff Cycling Wed Cyclocross Reflection

Let them be Willy-Nilly…

As a cardiologist and advocate for healthy living through exercise, the bleak news of rising childhood obesity hits me hard.  But as an endurance athlete well versed in the inflammatory effects of excessive exercise, and a coach of middle school children, recent news reports on the over-training of American youth is equally troublesome. The over-training of […]

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AF ablation Atrial fibrillation

Do hundreds of left atrial burns reduce dementia risk?

Atrial fibrillation remains one of the most common cardiac diagnosis, and dementia is one of Neurology’s most frequent diagnosis.  Recently, a study from a Utah group of electrophysiologists showed that AF predisposes to all forms of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease. The study involved 37.000 patients, and was published in the prominent and well respected Heart […]

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Health Care Healthy Living

The tale of two attractions…

The past few days, instead of the usual labors in the EP lab, I spent 48 hours as a parent chaperone on an out-of-town middle school field trip.  The schedule was frantic, befitting a 13 year old much more so than a 46 year old.  But that’s another story.  Suffice it to say, that AF […]

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Cycling Stuff General Cardiology General Medicine Nutrition

Don’t double down on improving the nutrition of Americans…

Images taken via the iPhone on visiting the cardiac nurses lounge today.   Indeed, it seems America is running to Dunkin.  Now for the closer: KFC’s double down.  Fried chicken as the bun, processed white flour, saturated fat, pork fat, dairy fat, special sauce and nearly an entire days worth of sodium masquerading as food.  […]