Today’s vlog is on the subject of heart failure and in particular on a special type of pacemaker which can make a significant improvement to the quality of life and length of life in patients with heart failure. What is heart failure? The heart is a pump and if the heart is in some way damaged - be that by a heart attack or a virus or harmful drugs then the heart is unable to pump out enough blood [...]
We are blessed with 4 heart valves - 2 on the left side which are known as the mitral and aortic valves and 2 on the right side - the tricuspid and pulmonary valves. Sometimes due to a congenital problem, age related changes or even an acquired cause, these valves can start leaking and when they do so to a severe extent, they can adversely impact on a patient’s quality of life as well as their [...]
One of the reasons I wanted to start this channel was because of my frustration at how limited we were when it came to treating heart disease patients. Of course one of the reasons for this is that we simply don't know enough but another reason was that medicine as a whole has become very defensive. Offer the patient only those therapies which are recommended by clinical guidelines because that is [...]
I wanted to tell you a story about a patient who recently contacted me for advice. This particular lady was in her 50s in a very prestigious and high powered post and completely fit and well. She was married, had a daughter in Australia and had a wonderful social life with hiking with her girlfriends. Around Xmas time in 2020, she developed a flu-like illness and after that she started noticing t [...]
Broadly speaking there are 3 things that can go wrong with the heart. The heart is a pump and that pump may be faulty either due to congenital problem or an acquired problem. If the pump is in any way defective then not as much blood comes out of the heart and the body and all our vital organs will get less blood than they should and this could lead to harm. So cardiomyopathies, valve problems, my [...]
As a doctor and cardiologist, I see heart attacks and death on a daily basis and after a while one gets used to it and it feels like nothing can shock anymore. However, I was completely shocked yesterday when I heard about Shane Warne’s death from a suspected heart attack. Firstly he was only 52. Secondly he was a world class athlete only a few years ago. Thirdly from the news it seems that he was [...]
The York Press A YORK heart specialist says he believes many Long Covid patients may actually have a condition called POTS - and could benefit from treatments used for patients with the syndrome. Dr Sanjay Gupta, a consultant cardiologist at York Hospital, is an expert in POTS, or postural tachycardia syndrome. The condition can leave sufferers debilitated, constantly exhausted, and sometimes unab [...]
The first thing I want to say is that unfortunately the practice of modern day medicine is largely servile to clinical guidelines. We decide how to treat a patient based on how someone else (i.e whoever wrote the guideline) tells us how to manage the patient. If we stick to the guideline, we feel that we are offering top quality care and we can defend ourselves in court. If we don't stick to the g [...]
Today’s video is on the subject of intracoronary stents. In this video, I will talk about what stents are, why they are used and what benefits and risks are associated with their implantation. The first thing to understand is that for most of us, as we get older, the major risk to our health will be progressive ‘wear and tear’ in our heart arteries (coronary arteries). There are 2 problems with t [...]
As a cardiologist, I am always thinking of heart health and heart disease. More recently, I was at a raucous party and I saw a bunch of overweight middle-aged men smoking, drinking and overeating and I couldn’t help thinking of all the damage that was potentially happening in their heart arteries. What was interesting however was that there were lots of similarly overweight, smoking and overeating [...]
POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. This means that patients with this condition find that they feel unwell with symptoms of tremulousness, dizziness and heart palpitations when they stand up. On objective assessment,there is an exaggerated and sustained increase in heart rate (> 30 beats/ per minute in adults; >40 beats per minute in children) compared to when the pat [...]
My name is Sanjay Gupta and I am a cardiologist in York. Today’s blog is on the subject of heart attacks. As many of you have probably come to know, the whole of India is in mourning after one of its brightest TV and film stars, Siddharth Shukla, died suddenly at the age of only 40 years. Initial reports have suggested that Siddhartha died of a massive heart attack. Here was a wonderfully athlet [...]
On 29/10/21, the Indian Film industry lost another of its young and bright stars to an unexpected cardiac arrest. Puneeth Raj Kumar was only 46 years old, was a healthy fitness enthusiast and had just finished at the gym and then started complaining of intense fatigue. Unfortunately his heart then went into a very fast but ineffective rhythm called ventricular fibrillation. As no blood was being c [...]
Atrial fibrillation is a common heart rhythm disturbance which may impact on both quality and quantity of life. AF can also come and go and when a patient does develop an episode of AF, they can be very symptomatic with palpitations, breathlessness, fatigue and tiredness. We also know that AF begets AF. The more AF, you get the more you will have in the future. Whilst there are many pharmaceutica [...]
One of my specialist interests is in a condition called POTS (postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). This is a condition that affects young patients (more women than men) who struggle with severe chronic fatigue, an inability to stand up for a prolonged period of time, heart palpitations, brain fog, lack of refreshing sleep, IBS-like gut issues, fibromyalgia and chronic pain. Despite self man [...]
The subject of high blood pressure is both confusing and hugely anxiety-provoking for patients. The unfortunate thing is that many medical practitioners also don’t quite understand blood pressure and this shows in how blood pressure is managed in modern-day medicine. What is a complex underlying process has now been simplified to a set of 2 numbers and if those 2 numbers are higher that what a bun [...]
Today’s video is on the subject of Type 2 Diabetes and an incredible set of medications that have been shown to significantly reduce the risk of heart disease, kidney disease and death in patients with type 2 Diabetes. I can guarantee that every single person watching this video will know someone who has type 2 Diabetes and i would urge would anyone with type 2 diabetes to watch this video as the [...]
The aortic valve is the exit valve of the heart. When the heart contracts, it forces open this one-way valve to push the blood out into the main blood vessel, the aorta, from where the blood goes to the rest of the body. If there is a problem with this valve, then the heart may not be able to pump blood out as efficiently and this will impact on how much blood is delivered to the rest of the body. [...]
