Have you ever felt like your trip to the doctor was more like standing on a conveyor belt than being truly cared for? In and out, numbers checked, boxes ticked, a prescription handed over — and that’s it. This is what I call conveyor belt medicine. And it’s a growing problem. What is conveyor belt medicine? Conveyor belt medicine happens when the system is so focused on speed, efficiency, [...]
Introduction: Every so often, a clinical trial comes along that changes the way we think about treatment. In atrial fibrillation, one of those trials was called AVERROES. And it answered a very important question: if a patient with AF can’t take warfarin, is aspirin good enough — or is there something better? The problem before AVERROES "We’ve known for decades that atrial fibrillation increases t [...]
What is vitamin D? A fat-soluble vitamin made in the skin when exposed to sunlight. Important for bone health, calcium balance, and immune function. Also thought to have effects on the cardiovascular system because vitamin D receptors are found in blood vessels, heart muscle, and immune cells. Why the interest in heart health? Low vitamin D levels have been linked in observational studies to: High [...]
We often talk about stress as though it’s all in the mind. But the truth is — the body listens. And nowhere is this more true than in the heart. When we’re stressed, the body goes into survival mode. Your brain signals the release of adrenaline and cortisol — hormones designed to help you fight or flee. Your heart starts to race. Your blood pressure rises. Your blood vessels constrict. Your breath [...]
The Heart is a muscle and any muscle requires a blood supply to function. The heart is supplied by 2 main blood vessels. The left coronary artery and the right coronary artery. The left further divides into 2 large branches: The left anterior descending artery (LAD) and the left circumflex artery. Each of these vessels supply a part of the heart and in combination, these 3 vessels supply the whole [...]
The concept of ‘caring’ in medicine can be metaphorically likened to actively choosing to walk the patient home. However ‘home’ in this setting refers to the place the patient calls home - Caring is not about walking the patient to the place that the doctor calls home. This is fundamentally the problem with modern day medical care. We try and walk the patient to ‘our home’ and not to ‘their’ h [...]
Several years ago, I was invited to join a fellowship program at one of the most prestigious cardiac institutions in the USA. I recall that time as one filled with great joy (because I thought it would greatly help my career) but also in part tainted with some trepidation (because this place only attracted the best of best and I didnt think I was bright enough to be mingling with such people). I [...]
The modern age of clinical guidelines began with a 1992 institute of medicine report which defined guidelines as systematically developed statements meant to assist practitioner and patient decisions about healthcare for specific clinical circumstances. The key words there were ‘assist practitioner AND patient decisions’. However over the course of the last 30 years, this seemingly innocuous and p [...]
A lot of people have contacted me and asked me as to how to safely stop Beta blockers and therefore I thought I would do a quick blog on this subject. I would like to stress that you should only alter the dosage or stop Beta-blocker usage with the explicit consent of your usual healthcare provider as they will know about your unique clinical situation and all I am doing in this vlog is just givin [...]
Today’s video is on the subject of stroke and in particular cryptogenic strokes. A stroke is often a devastating occurrence for several reasons: A stroke can be life threatening and stroke is widely recognised as a leading cause of death worldwide A stroke can be disabling and can destroy a person’s quality of life A stroke can recur and cause more damage/death the next time. It is therefore cruc [...]
Pericarditis refers to inflammation of the pericardium The pericardium is a sac within which the heart sits. This sac has 2 layers- known as the visceral and parietal layers separated by a potential space which contains about 10-50mls of fluid. Acute inflammation of this sac is known as acute pericarditis. If the inflammation spreads to the surface of the heart itself, it is termed myopericarditis [...]
At first glance, the subject of heart disease can seem exceptionally complex - consisting of several different conditions, medical jargon and very scary sounding terminology. However when we really examine heart disease closely there are in general mainly 3 things that can go wrong with the heart and cause harm and if we know this then we are able to firstly understand the different conditions be [...]
A lady in her 60s recently consulted me. She was extremely concerned because she was facing a dilemma and she did not know what to do. Basically she had been to see her GP and because her cholesterol was found to be a little on the higher side, she was being strongly advised by her GP to take a Statin. My patient did not want to take Statins. Her argument was that she had never had a problem with [...]
The term MINOCA stands for Myocardial infarction with non-obstructive coronary arteries. I'll try and explain this a bit better by using a case study. A 50-year-old lady was admitted to my hospital with crushing chest tightness. She had an ECG which suggested changes in keeping with a lack of blood getting to the heart. She had a blood test to measure Troponin. Troponins are enzymes released from [...]
The word arrhythmia comes from two Greek words. The first is ‘a-’ which means absence or loss and the second is ‘rhythmos’ which means rhythm. So arrhythmia literally means absence or loss of rhythm. A cardiac arrhythmia therefore means loss of cardiac rhythm. It is however used in medical practice as a description for disturbance rather than absence of heart rhythm. In that sense, the term dysrhy [...]
My name is Sanjay Gupta and in my last video, I decried the over-zealous prescription of medications which may have no or limited benefit for the patient. In this video, I wanted to explore this further with respect to Aspirin which is commonly prescribed for prevention or treatment of heart disease. This video is enigmatically entitled ‘Welcome to the primary Bank of Aspirin’. The best banks to p [...]
What is POTS? POTS stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. In this condition, patients complain when they stand up for a prolonged period of time, they feel very uncomfortable with dizziness, palpitations and tremulousness and therefore they either have to sit or lie down or they risk collapsing. When you examine them, the heart rate can be found to be excessively fast. As doctors, [...]
You can download this script as a Hindi translation here. 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 harmf [...]
