Ruminations on medical matters
Posted in Blog on Nov 29th, 2011
“The artifactual disease” is the phrase George Pickering coined to describe hypertension in the 1950′s and 60′s. In those days, he dominated the debate about the nature of hypertension, arguing against those who thought hypertensive patients who developed complications comprised a distinct entity of subjects. “The higher the pressure, the worse the prognosis,” he would [...]
Posted in Blog on Oct 19th, 2011
1992 The USDA introduces its food guide pyramid 2005 The USDA modifies its food guide pyramid to more accurately reflect knowledge in nutrition science….
Posted in Blog on Sep 30th, 2011
In the current issue of Clinical Cardiology, Nanette Wenger, Professor Emeritus of Cardiology at Emory University and regular fixture on the AHA and ACC guideline-writing committees, offers us a “guide to the guidelines” article that summarizes the pertinent recommendations in the 2011 Update to the AHA Guidelines for Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in Women. Now [...]
Posted in Blog on Sep 1st, 2011
A “reader’s comment” on an opinion piece by William C. Roberts in the American Journal of Cardiology, kindly published by the editor. Roberts’ editorial focuses on the large body of evidence favoring the cholesterol hypothesis and laments what he considers the distracting effect of complementary hypotheses (eg. inflammation, “multifactorial” nature of atherosclerosis, etc.). I offer [...]
Posted in Blog on Aug 26th, 2011
…is that it reveals the opaque logic of public interest policies… While the NIH is tightening its rules concerning what financial ties university researchers must disclose before getting public grants, the FDA may be loosening its own criteria for excluding potential advisors based on their industry connections. It seems that as a consequence of the [...]
Posted in Blog on Jul 20th, 2011
Cardiology News for July… “Niacin Questioned After AIM_HIGH Is Halted.” Another “disappointing” trial on raising HDL, except, of course, for those patients currently taking the “vitamin” who may be allowed to flush it down the commode once and for all. Naturally, Antonio Gotto (in an accompanying editorial) does not lose hope that another pharmacological intervention [...]
Posted in Blog on Jul 18th, 2011
This week’s JACC offers an excellent paper by Kitzman and co-workers on what is now called “Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction,” or HFPEF, (or huff-puff…). The article reports on the cardiopulmonary physiology of 48 patients with “pure” huff-puff (no amyloid or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) compared to 25 healthy controls. All were subjected to measurement of [...]
Posted in Blog on Jul 5th, 2011
Drs. Marc Pfeffer and Marianne Bowler are commenting on the Supreme Court’s ruling in Matrixx vs. Siracusano, which upheld a lower court’s decision that a drug manufacturer must disclose to shareholders information regarding adverse effects, even absent any measure of statistical significance. But the authors would like to go beyond the court’s mandate. They advocate [...]
Posted in Blog on Jul 5th, 2011
CHICAGO—June 16, 2011—The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has announced the creation of a new certifying body, the American Board of Database Medicine (ABDM). The announcement was made jointly by ABMS and the American Association of Database Doctors (AADD), the leading professional organization representing database medicine specialists. “The last decades have witnessed an unprecedented [...]
Posted in Blog on Jul 2nd, 2011
In the June 21 issue of JACC, Dr. Harold E. Bays argues for establishing “adiposopathy” as a full-fledged disease to provide a coherent understanding of the role of fat tissue in cardiovascular disease, dispel the confusion related to the many-named “metabolic syndrome,” and resolve the obesity paradox. Does he succeed in this task? What would [...]