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Research Demonstrates Emotion’s Effect On The Human Heart

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?

When an endurance athlete in middle age is felled by a sudden heart attack, these questions always arise. It’s mysterious, as the idea holds that exercise and fitness should inoculate one from heart disease. But it does not.

There is more to the story of heart attacks than just the big five: genetics, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

What To Include In Your Diet To Lower Harmful LDL Cholesterol

Low-fat diets, move over. When it comes to lowering cholesterol, a “portfolio” diet that includes cholesterol-lowering foods such as oatmeal, nuts, and soy products is better.

Several years ago, researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital and the University of Toronto created what they called a “dietary portfolio of cholesterol-lowering foods.” It went after cholesterol by adding to a heart-healthy diet specific foods known to lower cholesterol: margarine enriched with plant sterols; oats, barley, psyllium, okra, and eggplant, all rich in soluble fiber; soy protein; and whole almonds.

In a head-to-head test against the low-fat diet traditionally recommended by the American Heart Association, the portfolio approach was the clear winner. (You can see the makeup of the test diet here.) After 24 weeks, it lowered harmful LDL cholesterol by 13%, while the low-fat diet lowered LDL by only 3%. As an added benefit, the portfolio approach also lowered triglycerides and blood pressure, and did not depress the level of beneficial HDL cholesterol. The results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What I appreciate about this study is that it Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

Tips To Beat The Heat

Dehydrated, cramped, limping? on a bike. Road nationals 2010.

People who exercise outdoors face a new threat.

It’s unrelenting.

Consistent.

Inescapable.

Perhaps, even more dangerous than distracted or mean motorists.

It’s the heat. Gosh, is it hot. If only I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “Doctor M, you aren’t riding in this heat; are you?”

Well…Other than the fortunate souls smart (or lucky) enough to live in cooler climates, most of us are facing an extreme wave of hotness. As a Kentuckian, I live in the epicenter of this summer’s cauldron. Louisville sits in a wind-protected valley alongside the heat sink that is the Ohio River. Think hot and steamy.

The excessive heat smacked me hard last evening. Normally, my highly-veined skin and northern European heritage serves me well in the heat. But last night, while riding in sight of our city’s skyline, it started: My mouth grew dry and my breathing labored. And why was that helmet feeling so tight? Next came the sensation of tingles—not the pleasant kind of tingles, like when your teenager hugs you. And then came the deal-breaker: chills. I stopped, swallowed my pride and called for a ride home. (Here’s an always for you all: When it’s ninety degrees out and you feel cold–stop exercising, immediately.)

After last night’s brush with heat exhaustion, I thought it reasonable to ramble on about the dangers of exercising in the heat. And of course, I will offer some nuggets of wisdom for beating the heat. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

Heart Health Related To Satisfaction With Life

For centuries, health providers have focused on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease. This time-honored paradigm has generated phenomenal advances in medicine, especially during the last 60 years. It has also created a bit of an image problem for providers. That’s because the paradigm encourages consumers to perceive health care as a negative good; an economic term describing a bundle of products and services that we use because we must, not because we want to. Recent trends towards empowered consumers are a symptom of this problem more than a solution to it, as I described here.

greatbigbeautifultomorrow 300x199 Positive Health and the HeartRecently, the concept of Positive Health has emerged as a possible antidote for the malaise.

Pioneered by University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman, Positive Health encourages us to identify and promote positive health assets—which Seligman describes as strengths that contribute to a healthier, more fulfilling life and yes, improved life expectancy as well. According to Seligman, “people desire well-being in its own right and they desire it above and beyond the relief of their suffering.”

Proponents of Positive Health have proposed that Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*

Cardiovascular Problems? Stay Out Of The Heat

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The brutal heat wave gripping much of the country this week is unpleasant for healthy folks. For people with cardiovascular trouble, hazy, hot, humid days can be downright dangerous.

Your body shouldn’t get too hot (or too cold). If your temperature rises too far, the proteins that build your body and run virtually all of its chemical processes can stop working. The human body sheds extra heat in two ways, both of which stress the heart:

Radiation. Like water flowing downhill, heat naturally moves from warm areas to cooler ones. As long as the air around you is cooler than your body, you radiate heat to the air. But this transfer stops when the air temperature approaches body temperature.

Radiation requires rerouting blood flow so more of it goes to the skin. This makes the heart beat faster and pump harder. On a hot day, it may circulate two to four times as much blood each minute as it does on a cool day.

Evaporation. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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