As you know I have done a ton of videos on the subject of ectopic heartbeats and as a consequence have spoken to several thousand people who have ectopic heartbeats and listening to their individual stories and by far the one common thing I have found is that virtually everyone who complains of ectopics will also admit to having some degree of health-related anxiety i.e they carry with them this f [...]

Many people choose to vape as a safer alternative to smoking yet we still don't know whether vaping is safe or not. Recently the USA government has published a spate of vaping related deaths and cases of lung disease. In this video, I discuss what we know about vaping and its effects on the heart. Please visit www.drsanjaygupta.com for a transcript of this video [...]

Bluebell Gupta and Sanjay would like to say a very big thank you to all of you for your support, love, and kind-heartedness! You give our lives meaning and we are very grateful!!! [...]

Today I am going to talk about a really interesting blood test that detects weakness of the heart muscle (heart failure). This test is called BNP. BNP stands for brain natriuretic peptide and this test is already being used commonly in medical practice. Before I talk about this BNP, I wanted to start off by talking about heart failure. In heart failure, the fundamental problem is that the heart is [...]

A lot of my work involves talking to and reassuring people who suffer from ectopic heartbeats which seem to cause a ton of anxiety and really seem to have a negative impact on the quality of life. Most patients I have spoken to have already seen a doctor and the doctor has told them that they are not dangerous but for them this reassurance is seldom enough. The anxious mind needs more than that cu [...]

My name is Sanjay Gupta and I am a consultant in York. Today I wanted to do a little video on the subject of blood pressure. If there is one thing that causes a ton of anxiety, it is the mention of high blood pressure. A common scenario, for example, is that the patient goes to see his doctor for a routine visit or a completely unrelated complaint and the first thing the doctor or the practice nur [...]

Patients with AF who are above the age of 65, or have co-morbidities such as diabetes, high blood pressure, vascular disease or heart failure are at an increased risk of stroke. It is understood that these patients are at a higher risk of stagnation of blood within the heart; the stagnant blood can form clots within the heart and these clots can get dislodged, travel to the brain, and block the bl [...]

An echocardiogram is an ultrasound-based assessment of the heart. It is painless, harmless, readily available in most hospitals and can give a large amount of very useful information about the structure and function of the heart. As atrial fibrillation can be caused by a structural problem with the heart such as heart valve disease or heart muscle weakness, the echo can help to elucidate the under [...]

A PFO is best thought of as a communication at the level of the atrial septum between the left heart and the right heart. It is found in 25-30% of a normal healthy population and usually does not cause any symptoms, impact on the quality of life or lifespan. Many people refer to it as a ‘hole in the heart’ although strictly speaking, a PFO is more like a flap or a partially open door rather than a [...]

Medical care for patients who have a diagnosis of POTS remains hugely unsatisfactory. POTS or rather dysautonomia is a very heterogeneous condition. No two people are exactly the same. There is no one single etiology that can even sometimes be identified. Often the patient who is really suffering looks alright from the outside. Many doctors, largely out of ignorance or perhaps arrogance, don’t eve [...]

I am Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a consultant heart specialist in York and I believe that high quality, reliable, jargon-free information about health and disease should be freely available to everyone in the world. In this video, I wanted to talk to you about an interesting but also potentially very dangerous condition called pulmonary hypertension. I refer to it as interesting for 3 reasons: 1) Most heart [...]

SCAD is an uncommon but potentially dangerous cause for heart attacks in young patients and especially young women (less than 50 years of age). Most heart attacks occur because of a blockage in the lumen of a coronary artery. This is usually because of a build-up of atherosclerotic plaque over a number of years and this is why heart attacks are more common in the elderly. In SCAD, however, the pro [...]

Wolff Parkinson White syndrome is an unusual heart rhythm condition in which patients can develop sudden onset of fast heart palpitations. These can be associated with light-headedness/dizziness, blackouts, chest pain and in very rare cases, sudden death. However, the good news is that this is a completely curable condition. In this video, I will try and hopefully give you some insight into this i [...]

My name is Sanjay Gupta. I am a cardiologist in York. My Facebook page is YORKCARDIOLOGY1 and my website is www.yorkcardiology.co.uk. In this video, I discuss implantable loop recorders and how they can help pick up the cause of your palpitations or blackouts. [...]

In this video, I discuss peripartum cardiomyopathy which is characterised by the development of heart failure in pregnancy. What is peripartum cardiomyopathy? This is also known as pregnancy-associated cardiomyopathy and is a relatively uncommon condition which affects women either late during pregnancy or within 5 months of giving birth and is characterised by the development of heart muscle weak [...]

In this video, I tell you about those features which make an abnormal heart rhythm dangerous. The first is 1) How sustained the heart rhythm is 2) How fast the disturbance is 3) Is it atrial or ventricular 4) Is it on the background of an already damaged heart? [...]

One of the subjects I have become very interested in POTS. For those who don’t know POTS, it stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and is characterised by an excessive increase in heart rate when the patient is upright and this can be extremely unsettling. The heart races, the patient feels tremulous and can feel very dizzy. In addition, patients with POTS have many other symptoms t [...]

In this video, I discuss how we can work out who is more at risk of the consequences of high blood pressure and therefore warrants aggressive blood pressure medications and I also discuss white coat hypertension [...]