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*
April 7th, 2011 by John Mandrola, M.D. in Research
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For competitive cyclists, Sunday morning usually signifies a time for combining spirituality with calorie-burning. Whether we are immersed in the total focus of a hotly-contested bike race or meditating our way through a seemingly endless training ride, it’s a given that most cyclists use Sundays to churn out the kilo-joules.
This kind of Sunday-behavior differs significantly from many regular (normal) people, who like to sleep late, get up slowly, dress themselves nicely and amble off to church. It goes without saying that this kind of spiritual exercise doesn’t burn many calories. And it is also well known that worship and consuming high-calorie comfort food frequently go hand in hand.
In the hard-to-believe-that-people-study-this kind-of-thing category, comes a report that frequent churchgoing in young adulthood increases the risk of obesity in middle age. Really, I am not making this up. The story was reported prominently here, on the theHeart.org. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*