Medicine

Too often mental health problems are dismissed as being “all in your head”. With scientific and medical advancements showing mental illness can cause physical changes to the body, we now know the devastating impact mental health has on physical health. One system that is greatly affected by mental health is the cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, not only is there a link between mental illness and cardiovascular disease, it’s a connection that runs both ways. Mental Health is Heart Health People with severe mental illness – conditions like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or depression –…

Social media outlets are once again bubbling with misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and cardiovascular disease. The latest uproar is over claims of a link between vaccines and increased rates of sudden cardiac arrest in athletes. Despite the outcries of vaccination opponents, there is no connection between COVID-19 vaccines and sudden cardiac arrest in athletes. In fact, there is no increase in sudden cardiac arrests among athletes. What is the Claim? Numerous social media posts have emerged recently, claiming to show connections between dramatic increases in the number of athletes…

Like the phantom heart in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, myths about COVID-19 vaccines and the risks for cardiovascular disease keep on beating. The latest mythical bogeyman comes in the form of an abstract presented at the American Heart Association's annual meeting, claiming that COVID-19 mRNA vaccines increase the risk of a heart condition called Acute Coronary Syndrome. But a review of the data shows that this study is a tale that even Poe would find horrifying.  Credit: Victorian Era Just The "Facts" The study by Dr. Steven Gundry reports that a Protein…

In the wake of the pandemic crisis, many services had to go online or change to the home office. Classes, conferences, and meetings moved to the internet, with laptops and mobile devices. If co-workers can meet online, why can't you see your doctor in the same way? Telecommunication technology is more accessible than ever. Undoubtedly, healthcare technology must keep pace with it. There are limitations to this system, though. Still, it can be a very effective tool for preventive healthcare. Read more about telemedicine's advancements in this article. Main Applications In 2015, specialists…

Since COVID-19 emerged on the global scene, the heart has been the centre of action. Cardiovascular disease increases the risk of severe illness and death, and injuries to the heart and blood vessels are common complications. Recent reports linking COVID-19 vaccinations of young adults to a heart condition called myocarditis are the most recent chapter in this story. Is this link a real-life medical mystery or a work of fiction? What is Myocarditis? Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle, typically caused by the immune system reacting to an infection. Other causes of myocarditis…

By Glen Pyle and Gurkiran Dhuga COVID-19 has thrown professional baseball in North America a curveball. An outbreak among players for the Miami Marlins, that has spread to the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, brings into question the infection control protocols touted by Major League Baseball. But perhaps more concerning is the report that Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez developed myocarditis as a result of COVID-19. Will myocarditis from COVID-19 be a strike out pitch for professional baseball? The Starter: Myocarditis Myocarditis is an inflammatory injury of heart…

by Gurkiran Dhuga&Glen Pyle The fight for equality between the sexes has undoubtedly made significant advances recently. But a new meta-analysis examining sex differences in treatment for cardiovascular risk factors presents a depressing snapshot of the current state of medicine. In fact, it suggests that in order to make progress, we may need to go all the way back to the beginning. Back to primary care. A Primary Deficiency Researchers from the University of Oxford conducted a systematic review of 43 observational studies involving over 2.2 million patients in primary care settings. The…

As the search for an effective COVID19 treatment goes on, one therapy keeps re-appearing in the headlines: hydroxychloroquine. Early, observational studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with COVID19 failed to show any real benefits of the drug. The ability of hydroxychloroquine to prevent the development of COVID19, however, remained largely untested. But a study on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID19 has been published and the results are not what anyone was hoping for. The Set-Up A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial lead by…

The antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine, touted as a miracle cure for COVID-19, appeared to have had it’s Titanic moment, at least according to a study published in the Lancet. The retrospective study analyzed the records of patients from 6 continents and found that not only was hydroxychloroquine not an effective treatment, its cardiac side effects were potentially dangerous. But this was just the tip of the iceberg, and the results were disastrous. The Study The retrospective study by Mehra and colleagues included 96,032 patients from 671 hospitals who were hospitalized for COVID-19…

We've known for some time that the islet is sensitive to a glucose demand in secreting insulin and uses gap junctions as a tuning parameter in this adaptation. Thus restoring natural cellular function through the use of microcurrents or electrical connectivity holds much promise for the future of diabetes treatment and pancreatic islet cell repair. Gap junction expression and coupling strength are very likely to occur as heterogeneous across the islet. If the naturally heterogeneous nature of gap junctions is acknowledged, this could be critical in designing appropriate clinical diabetes…