This was also published in PracticeUpdate on Tuesday, February 21, 2023 Endurance athletes know that interval training rapidly increases exercise capacity and improves endurance performance. Intervals are a form of training in which high intensity exercise bouts, lasting several minutes, are performed repetitively, separated by periods of less intense exertion…

Kratka K…Loscalzo, J. Case Reprots — A Stormy Heart. N Engl J Med. 2023 Jan 5;388(1):71–78. PMID: 36599065 · One of the best ways to keep up with clinical cardiology (besides Hartford Hospital’s excellent cardiology grand rounds) is to read the N Engl J Med case reports on cardiac topics…

Whose parents didn’t encourage them to eat better by saying, “you are what you eat?” Shan and colleagues used data from 75,230 women in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and 44,085 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (PHFS) to examine the relationships of dietary intake to mortality and cause…

Physical activity and athletic participation have long been associated with longevity and reduced atherosclerotic cardiovascular events (ASCVD), but recent studies have demonstrated that endurance athletes have more coronary artery calcification (CAC) and atherosclerotic plaque than comparison subjects.1 The Measuring Athletes Risk of Cardiovascular events or “MARC-1” study used computerized tomographic…

It is important in medicine to maintain a differential diagnosis and not to “diagnostically anchor” to one diagnosis. There are several possible causes of Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest. Commotio cordis is the leading candidate but cardiac contusion, and even direct injury to the left anterior descending coronary artery are possible…

That term “Hearts of Stone” is used frequently to discuss excess coronary artery calcification (CAC). I wrote about increased CAC and its causes in this blog on March 26, 2020. The Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) recently published a state-of-the-art review on managing another form of stone…

Paul D. Thompson MD The 2018 physical activity guidelines recommend that Americans perform 150 to 300 minutes weekly (min/wk) of moderately intense physical activity (MPA), such as brisk walking, or 75 to 150 min/wk of vigorous physical activity (VPA), such as jogging. These recommendations are based on multiple epidemiological studies…

Paul D. Thompson, MD Skeletal muscle (SM) does more than just move us around. It secretes signaling proteins (myokines) that affect other tissues and has a key role in glucose metabolism since it is the major organ for glucose disposal. …

Coronary artery calcification (CAC) scoring is useful in deciding which patients with low or borderline atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk require more aggressive risk factor treatment. A CAC score of zero portends low risk, but a zero score, does not equal zero risk. …