In the sports news this week was Carlos Silva, the pitcher traded from my local MBL team the Seattle Mariners to the Chicago Cubs last winter, who had to leave a game with what is reported to be supraventricular tachycardia. This type of very rapid heart rate comes intermittently in paroxysms, therefore the ...
Category Archives: Cardiovascular
Que She: Neither Natural Nor Safe Says the FDA
The FDA released a warning about an over the counter product called Que She marketed as an “all natural” herbal supplement to help with weight loss. The FDA states that this supposedly all natural supplement actually contains four drugs, one of which have been previously marketed by prescription but withdrawn from the market because ...
Blood Pressure Control: No Excuses. Just Do It!
A good argument can be made that we could save more lives and prevent more morbidity by aggressively diagnosing, treating and controlling hypertension than with any other condition given the knowledge and tools at our disposal at this time. Hypertension is not a sexy to address as things like breast cancer, colon cancer or diabetes, but ...
FDA Approves the First Generic ARB This Week
More great news the generic medication front. One of the key classes of medications we use in the treatment of hypertension, heart failure, and diabetes are the Angiotensin 2 Receptor Blockers (ARBs). The first drug to market in this class was losartin, marketed as Cozaar by Merck. Teva Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest ...
Now we have Effective Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure
Second in my series of trips down memory lane over the last 30 years is on the treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF). This comes to mind because of a patient I saw today in the office. Now 62 years old, Mr. N. had not been to the office for about 8 years, because he has been ...
Aspirin – Should you take one a day?
Of all the OTC meds available today possibly the most useful and almost certainly the most studied is aspirin. As a college chemistry major I couldn't resist showing a chemical structure here. I wrote about aspirin in our office’s most recent
Good news for Coffee Drinkers
More good news for coffee drinkers. I can remember spending time explaining why my patient in the hospital after a heart attack could not have their morning coffee, because it might cause a life threatening arrythmia. It looks like I wasted my breath and deprived them needlessly. A recent study reported on MedPage ...
Broken Hearts
An article in the NY Times by Ron Winslow gives an example of the ‘Broken Heart Syndrome” and a fair description of the pathophysiology of this condition. Basically it is a transient dysfunction of the entire pumping action of the heart associated with pain that can mimic a coronary occlusion and “Heart Attack.” ...
Red Yeast Rice lowers LDL as well as Pravastatin
Pravastatin is the lowest potency statin that is widely used in the US to lower LDL cholesterol. It is often tolerated even in patients where other statins cause muscle pain. Red Yeast Rice extract is a well tolerated supplement that has been touted to lower LDL cholesterol. A study published in the Jan 15th ...
What are the common causes of preventable death in the US?
Most people can guess smoking is #1. But can you guess #2 Think a minute and look at the rest of this post. Comment if you are surprised. This is from The estimated number of deaths related to the risk factors annually was: 467,000 for smoking 395,000 for high blood pressure 216,000 for overweight and obesity 191,000 for inadequate physical activity and inactivity 190,000 ...