Because Good Medicine Deserves Better Explanations
It’s been almost forty years since Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris sang about the guy who left his gypsy girl for a journey “to the valley below”. His final cup of coffee became a classic. One more cup of coffee for the road One more cup of coffee ‘fore I go To the valley below – Bob Dylan 1976 Coffee, second … Read more
We’re all aware of the aggressive campaign driven by public health authorities and medical professionals to decrease blood cholesterol. It all started more than fifty years ago when the Framingham Heart Study reported that high blood cholesterol was a major risk factor for coronary heart disease (1). Central to the dogma was the belief that lowering blood cholesterol would … Read more
The metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors, most usually associated with increased body weight, fat accumulation around the abdominal organs often termed central, or visceral obesity (1), and increased resistance to the effects of insulin. Other names that have been used to describe the metabolic syndrome are syndrome X, the insulin resistance syndrome, the deadly quartet (2) and … Read more
The word cholesterol is inherent to heart disease. Just like Paris is the capital of France and the Moon orbits the Earth, so cholesterol is associated with heart disease. And common knowledge extends further. Most people know that cholesterol is measured in blood and that there’s is supposed to be both good and bad cholesterol. Bad cholesterol may … Read more
Cardiology is renowned for its innovative procedures and cutting edge technology. However, one of my favorite scientific papers of 2014 did not address innovative techniques, DNA sequencing or new wonder drugs. It dealt with the fact that certain lifestyle habits and the absence of abdominal obesity may prevent most heart attacks. Toady, chronic noncommunicable diseases are one of the biggest … Read more