Tag Archive for: heart disease

Does Sitting Cancel Out Exercise?

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This past Friday, I ran 4.5 miles on a great running and biking trail in Grand Rapids; it was a great morning and with the canopy of trees, it was cooler than it would have been in the sun. The rest of the day, I recorded my radio show, read, wrote, and finished off the day watching some home improvement shows. I typically spend more than eight hours sitting while I do what I do.

Unfortunately, that run won’t reduce my risk of dying from cardiovascular disease—not based on the headlines for a scientific statement just released . . .

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PQQ: The Bottom Line

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I’ve told you about PQQ this week because I’ve been asked about it so often. First I talked about the infomercial; the hype is tremendous if you spent the 30 minutes or so to watch it. There are actually a couple of different ads that essentially say the same thing. Then I showed you the research or rather lack of it. Why write anything more? Because there are things you should know about PQQ that I’m going to cover today.

PQQ is . . .

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PQQ: The Research

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PQQ was identified in the late 1970s, and since then there have been 796 studies of all types on PQQ (pyrroloquinoline quinone). The majority of those studies have been done in test tubes to determine exactly what PQQ is and what it does; those are necessary, but reveal little about its real impact on health. For that, you need clinical trials on human subjects.

There have been three studies done on humans (1,2,3); the total number of subjects has been less than 50. One study demonstrated that PQQ is absorbed when given as a supplement and had some . . .

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PQQ: Miracle in a Bottle

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The latest cure for your health problems has arrived. I know—I just watched the online infomercial. Or do they call it advertainment now?

It was presented by a cardiologist who is well respected in his field. The topic was arterial inflammation, AKA the cardiac killer, and what you could do about it. I was in.

What I saw were the “facts” about heart disease. Using an artist printing and drawing on a whiteboard with a voice over, I learned:

  • Cholesterol is not the cause of heart disease, the number one killer.
  • The Framingham Study gave . . .

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Your Heart and Tone

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If you live to 80, your heart will beat an average of three billion times. That’s right: billion with a b. Faster when you exercise, slower when you’re at rest, it does its job 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What’s even more amazing is how your heart rate is controlled by the nervous system. I’ve always found it fascinating and here’s why.

The pacemaker of the heart we talked about on Thursday gets signals from nerves that tell it . . .

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Your Heart and Autorhythmicity

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Your heart can beat over 200 times per minute during maximal exercise—give or take, depending on your age. Yet every beat is a succinct event made up of many steps with every one of those beats controlled by the electrical system of your heart. While that’s incredible in and of itself, the real story is one of the most amazing features of your heart called autorhythmicity.

Your heart has a special area in one chamber that stimulates it to beat; it’s called the sino-atrial node or the pacemaker. Think of that as . . .

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Your Heart and Syncytium

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We’re finishing American Heart Month with some things you probably didn’t know about your heart. Your heart is unique in many ways and this week, you’re going to learn a few of them.

The heart muscle is similar to skeletal muscle in the way it contracts, but that’s where the similarity ends. While skeletal muscles are laid out in parallel fashion and independent of one another, the heart muscle splits and connects to other fibers. In that way, every heart muscle cell connects to every other heart muscle cell. That allows signals to be transferred very . . .

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You’ve Got the Ball

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Two emails. Two men. Two deaths. In each case, the men likely didn’t know what they didn’t know. If they had known they had coronary artery disease or hypertension, they probably would have done something about it. Or maybe like many people, they wouldn’t have—“that couldn’t happen to me” syndrome or simply ignoring the facts. As I said on Thursday, this is American Heart Month. I’m going to give you three things you should do to reduce your risk of sudden death, the most extreme symptom of heart disease.

 

Graded Exercise Test . . .

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Death by Donut

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There are times when the topics I write about seem to align like astronomical events; it’s as if I’m compelled because of a series of apparently unrelated actions. This time, emails from two people prompted me to write about heart disease. Yes, it’s American Heart Month and I generally write about it every year. But what would get your attention? What might drive you to take action? Let’s see if the messages this week will do it.

Thanks to S.B., a longtime reader, for sending me a link to a story about a man who . . .

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PPIs and Heart Attacks: The Bottom Line

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Here’s why the Stanford Study on PPIs and heart attacks is not as concerning as the press release and the study itself suggested (1-2): it comes down to the data mining.

The data-mining algorithm obtained a lot of data in addition to PPIs, diagnosed acid reflux, and heart disease. It collected data on blood lipids, systolic blood pressure, and smoking status. What it did not do was collect the heights and weights to determine BMI from the medical records. The researchers acknowledged that they had no data on diabetes as well. Of all the information that could . . .

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