Heart Attack
Is Lp(a) Contributing to Mysterious Heart Attack…
Are physicians overlooking a key risk factor for heart disease? Is Lp(a) contributing to unexplained heart attacks? For decades, doctors have focused primarily on LDL cholesterol as a determinant of c…
Prescription Panic: Will Canadian Drug Imports S…
Americans pay a lot more for brand name medicines than people in other countries. We're not talking about $20 or $30 more. In some cases we are referring to hundreds of dollars a month more. There are…
What High Lp(a) Means Now: Risk Is Real, Treatme…
For decades, most doctors paid little attention to a blood lipid called lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a). That is changing dramatically. What high Lp(a) means now has become one of the most intriguing and con…
Light Exposure Overnight Raises Risk of Heart Di…
For thousands of years our human ancestors slept in the dark. There were no lights inside or outside. That meant that when candles or oil lamps were snuffed out at night, people had very little light …
Is There a Danger from Xylitol?
There is a strong consensus that Americans get too much sugar in our diets. As a result, manufacturers have turned to sugar substitutes for some popular foods and beverages and also some medications. …
Pelacarsen Failure: Heart Drug Lowers Lp(a) but …
Have you ever heard the expression: “The operation was successful, but the patient died?” It’s not a perfect analogy to the Lp(a) drug story…but it does convey the disappointment drug companie…
Will Boosting Your Step Count Save Your Life?
How many steps do you take a day? You may have heard that you should be taking 10,000 steps a day. Initially, that ideal step count was not based on evidence, but rather was a marketing maneuver by a …
Show 1421: Is Lp(a) the Heart Risk No One Talks …
This week, we get in-depth information on Lp(a), the heart risk no one talks about. You have heard of cholesterol, and you may even know what your cholesterol level is. The compound lipoprotein a may …
Do Low CAC Scores Mean You Don’t Need a St…
Statins are routinely prescribed for anyone with an elevated LDL cholesterol. That includes people who no family history or symptoms of heart disease. What if a person’s arteries appear completely f…
Shingles Vax Reduces Risk of HEART ATTACK, Strok…
The anti-vaccine movement has been gaining momentum, but there is growing evidence that the shingles vax offers benefit far beyond protection against shingles. Several studies have demonstrated that t…
Can People Ever Stop Taking Statins Without Suff…
Many healthcare professionals and patients think of statin-type cholesterol-lowering medications as powerful shields against heart disease. Most, however, do not understand the actual risk reduction. …
When Heart Biomarkers Mislead: LDL Cholesterol, …
What happens when the results from well-controlled clinical trials produce disappointing results? Could heart biomarkers mislead us? For decades, cardiologists have focused enormous attention on two …
Do Polyphenols from Blueberries and Blackberries…
Erectile dysfunction is surprisingly common. A very old study published in the American Journal of Medicine (Feb. 2007) reported the overall ED prevalence in men over 20 was 18.4%. Throw in a health c…
How Dangerous Is It to Stop Taking Aspirin?
Aspirin gets very little respect. Perhaps that's because it is well over 100 years old, or because it is inexpensive and available over the counter. Whatever the reason, it's our observation that peop…
Statins for Almost Everyone: Put Statins in Salt…
Years ago, a prominent cardiologist made what we assumed was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion: replace the salt-shakers on restaurant tables with “statin-shakers.” Judging from the new cholesterol gui…
Will Praluent, Repatha or Lipfendra Work If You …
When someone has a heart attack, there is a very good chance he will be put on a statin-type cholesterol-lowering medicine. This is called secondary prevention because the goal is to avoid a second he…
Lipfendra (Enlicitide) Slashes LDL Cholesterol! …
The Food and Drug Administration approved a brand-new cholesterol pill on July 16, 2026. This medicine is a PCSK9 inhibitor. Unlike its comrades, alirocumab (Praluent) and evolocumab (Repatha), it is …
Should You Take Aspirin for your Heart? The Answ…
One of the most confusing questions in modern medicine has been: "aspirin for your heart?" This inexpensive old drug has been praised, dismissed, recommended, restricted and re-evaluated more times th…
Why Grandma Was Right About Vegetables
Your grandmother may have told you to eat your vegetables. Ours certainly urged us to do so. If she did, she was right. Vegetables and fruits are good sources of flavanols, plant compounds that appear…
Show 1478: The Outdoor Prescription for Fighting…
Too many of us are spending our days staring at screens. Little screens on our phones, big screens on the television, medium-size screens on our computers at work. Our modern lifestyles mean that we s…
FDA Testosterone Reversal: Were Men Misled for a…
For more than a decade, federal regulators frightened doctors and patients about testosterone. They warned that this hormone might trigger heart attacks and strokes, fuel prostate cancer and worsen an…
COVID Vaccine Benefits: Did the CDC Try to Bury …
Americans love to hate vaccines. These days few medical topics generate as much anger, suspicion and outright hostility. That is why the latest evidence about COVID vaccine benefits may be hard for s…
Diet and Exercise Prevent Diabetes as Well as Me…
Is There a Way to Prevent Diabetes? Fifteen years ago, a study called the Diabetes Prevention Program showed that diet and exercise work as well to prevent diabetes among high-risk individuals as taki…
What Are the Health Benefits of Coffee and Choco…
Americans have a puritanical streak. This way of thinking suggests that if something hurts or tastes bad, it must be good for you. Conversely, if it tastes good, you might conclude it's bad for you. T…
Which Diuretic is Best for Hypertension? HCTZ or…
When a patient is diagnosed with high blood pressure that is not controlled by diet, exercise or other lifestyle interventions, doctors start writing prescriptions. One of their first-line drugs is al…
VERVE-102: One-and-Done Cholesterol Cure–Mirac…
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (May 25, 2026) is generating huge headlines about a cholesterol "cure." VERVE-102 is a one-dose gene-editing therapy that is capable of producing very lo…
Why Didn’t Statins Protect Dad from Clogge…
Most cardiologists take it as absolute fact that cholesterol is a bad actor in the heart disease saga. They believe that LDL cholesterol in particular is responsible for causing clogged coronary arter…
Why Haven’t Statins Stopped Heart Disease?
Statins are the most prescribed drugs in America. Atorvastatin (Lipitor) alone is taken by nearly 30 million people. If you add simvastatin, rosuvastatin, pravastatin and lovastatin, you get more than…
Lowering LDL Cholesterol Isn’t Enough: The Hid…
Most cardiologists believe that elevated levels of “bad” LDL are the number one cause of heart disease. The solution: lower the LDL cholesterol, prevent heart attacks! For many decades this idea d…
Shingrix Dementia Prevention: New Research &…
If your family and friends have escaped dementia, you are among the lucky ones. Almost everyone I talk to knows someone who has experienced the challenges of cognitive decline. More than 7 million Ame…
Cooking Oil Confusion: What’s Best, Olive,…
Health professionals have been confusing Americans about food for decades. We were told that cholesterol and fat were our enemies. Eggs, shrimp, nuts and olive oil were bad. That led the food industry…
Drug Effectiveness: The Missing Number Behind Ev…
You might assume that drug effectiveness would be one of the most important things a doctor would discuss when writing a new prescription. That almost never happens. Patients may be told what a medici…
Australians Live Longer with Vigorous Activity
New research shows you get a big boost from even a few minutes of vigorous activity. Of course, an exercise program that gets you to the gym several times a week is great. But even running up the stai…
Will Nexletol (Bempedoic Acid) Replace Statins?
Statins overwhelmingly dominate pharmacy sales. At last count, over 50 million people take statin-type cholesterol-lowering drugs such as atorvastatin, rosuvastatin and and simvastatin. That does not …
Heart Disease and Stroke = Our # 1 Killers! What…
Last January the American Heart Association (AHA) reported its latest stats on heart disease and stroke (Circulation, Jan. 21, 2026; JACC, Jan. 12, 2026). The analysis revealed that 915,973 Americans …
Sauna Bathing, Immune Stimulation and Other Heal…
Finnish researchers have been studying the health benefits of sauna bathing for years. A study published several years ago in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings reviewed the evidence for cardiovascular and o…
Make Sure Your Vegetarian Diet Is High Quality
A vegetarian diet can be beneficial, but the quality of the diet matters. Last year, a meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials covering more than 3.5 million participants found that there can…
High-Dose Flu Vaccines Against Dementia: New Dat…
The idea seems almost too simple: prevent infections, protect the brain! Yet a new study in the journal Neurology (April 1, 2026) suggests that seniors who receive a high-dose flu shot may be less lik…
The Dangers of Diclofenac and Other NSAID Pain R…
Doctors love NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs). That’s largely because they don’t have a lot of other tools in the toolkit when it comes to treating pain and inflammation. Opioids have…
How to Improve Cholesterol and Triglycerides wit…
After several decades of striving to avoid fat in general, Americans have finally gotten the memo: some fat is good for us! Scientists have been studying omega-3 fatty acids for decades. Now many folk…