October 23rd, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Opinion
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I follow a lot of intriguing people on Twitter. Each of them sends me noogets (a favorite slang word of mine) of information that either inspires, uplifts, informs or even amuses me.
But there’s one twitter-er that stands out. He really helps me–along with 2.6 million others.
The Dalai Lama tweets most mornings about the time I hit the deck. “What did he say this morning,” I ask myself frequently. Sometimes I pause for just a moment, but other times his words come back to me later in the day.
Now folks, I’m not going soft on you. I can’t even touch my toes, never mind do yoga. I realize that as a serious medical blogger, it’s not really accepted to let religion or politics seep into my posts.
But this very well-known quote seems to hint at the essence of our modern-day heart problems–atrial fibrillation in particular. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*
August 24th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Health Tips
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It may seem a little formal to say this, but I would like to start by stating my goals for today’s post:
- Introduce the concept of the athletic heart;
- Touch upon the notion of sudden death of the athlete;
- Explain what an ECG really is, and how it may help diagnose heart disease;
- Review a recent study about the common ECG variant seen in athletes…Early repolarization.
Intro: The adaptations of the human heart never cease to amaze me. Physical training transforms our hearts into high performance engines. Repeated sessions of interval training, combined with longer aerobic efforts, and sprinkled with adequate rest maximize our ability to keep pressure on the pedals, or run the sixth mile of the 10k at the same pace as the first, or for you swimmers, to keep getting back to the wall on the 1:15 mark.
Fitness also brings measurable changes in things we can observe. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*