Lowering cholesterol protects your heart and brain, regardless of your age
High or abnormal cholesterol levels, inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction play a key role in atherosclerosis and plaque buildup, the most common cause of heart attacks and strokes. (Endothelial dysfunction refers to impaired functioning of the inner lining of blood vessels on the heart’s surface. It results in these vessels inappropriately narrowing instead of widening, which limits blood flow.) There are many different types of cholesterol, including high density lipoprotein (HDL, or good, cholesterol); triglycerides (a byproduct of excess calories consumed, which are stored as fat); and low-density lipoprotein (LD...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 24, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Hanna Gaggin, MD, MPH Tags: Drugs and Supplements Healthy Eating Heart Health Source Type: blogs

Selectively Targeting Atherosclerosis-Related Inflammatory Signaling
Chronic, unresolved inflammation is a feature of aging, and an important contributing cause of many age-related conditions. It is an inappropriate and damaging overactivation of the immune system, provoked by senescent cell signaling and various other forms of cell and tissue damage characteristic of aging. Why not just work to consistently suppress inflammation, then? The answer is that short-term inflammation is very important to health. It is needed in wound healing, destruction of potentially cancerous cells, and to fight off pathogens, and all of that remains true even in patients suffering from chronic inflammation t...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 22, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 22nd 2021
In conclusion, long term LRIC could decrease blood pressure and ameliorate vascular remodeling via inflammation regulation. The Damage of a Heart Attack Causes the Immune System to Overreact https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2021/02/the-damage-of-a-heart-attack-causes-the-immune-system-to-overreact/ Researchers here note a mechanism that causes T cells of the adaptive immune system to spur chronic inflammation and tissue damage following a heart attack. As the researchers note, not all inflammation is the same. Some is maladaptive, and this is particularly the case in older individuals. The aged immun...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 21, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Incidence of Stroke is Declining in People Aged 70 and Older
The decline of cardiovascular disease in older people is the result of improved health practices, primarily less smoking, and a focus on lowering blood cholesterol via lifestyle change and drugs such as statins. The formation of fatty plaque in blood vessel walls occurs in later life, the condition known as atherosclerosis. The plaque narrows and weakens blood vessels throughout the body. The rupture of a vessel or disintegration of a plaque followed by a a downstream blockage is the mechanism that causes both stroke and heart attack. Atherosclerosis is a consequence of the mechanisms of aging and their downstream conseque...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 17, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

How to Navigate Life with a Chronic Disease Like T1D and High-Deductible Insurance Plans
Conclusion:So, this is a method to survive a high-deductible insurance plan without breaking the bank. I have done it, so I know it works. Keep in mind: insurance companies feel entitled to screw patients (you are not their customer, your employer is). Don ' t let them do it to you! (Source: Scott's Web Log)
Source: Scott's Web Log - February 8, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2021 high-deductible insurance plans insulin rebates test strips Source Type: blogs

How to Navigate Life with a Chronic Disease Like T1D and High-Deductible Insurance Plans
Conclusion:So, this is a method to survive a high-deductible insurance plan without breaking the bank. I have done it, so I know it works. Keep in mind: insurance companies feel entitled to screw patients (you are not their customer, your employer is). Don ' t let them do it to you! (Source: Scott's Web Log)
Source: Scott's Web Log - February 8, 2021 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2021 high-deductible insurance plans insulin rebates test strips Source Type: blogs

The Art of Explaining: Starting With the Big Idea
By HANS DUVEFELT We live in a time of thirty second sound bytes, 280 character tweets and general information overload. Our society seems to have ADHD. There is fierce competition for people’s attention. As doctors, we have so many messages we want to get across to our patients. How many seconds do we have before we lose their attention in our severely time curtailed and content regulated office visits? I have found that it generally works better to make a stark, radical statement as an attention grabber and then qualifying it than to carefully describe a context from beginning to end. Once a person shows...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 29, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care Hans Duvefelt health communication Source Type: blogs

Wellens' syndrome: to stent or not? IVUS negative, Symptoms persist, Stress Testing, Instantaneous Wave Free Ratio, and Fractional Flow Reserve.
A 55 y.o. male with no cardiac PMHX presented for 2 weeks of exertional chest pain, worsened on the day prior to presentation.  On the day of presentation, the chest discomfort was particularly intense, and associated with diaphoresis and nausea.  It was resolved (pain free) when the ECG was recorded:This ECG was read as " nonspecific " by the providers.  What do you think?These is classic Wellens ' pattern A (biphasic, terminal T-wave inversion), and it isWellens 'syndrome (Angina, resolved -- pain free -- with preserved R-waves and Wellens ' pattern A T-waves).  The morphology of these T-wav...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - January 28, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 23rd 2020
In conclusion, the study indicates that HBOT may induce significant senolytic effects that include significantly increasing telomere length and clearance of senescent cells in the aging populations. Data on the Prevalence of Liver Fibrosis in Middle Age https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/11/data-on-the-prevalence-of-liver-fibrosis-in-middle-age/ Fibrosis is a consequence of age-related disarray in tissue maintenance processes, leading to the deposition of scar-like collagen that disrupts tissue structure and function. It is an ultimately fatal issue for which there are only poor treatment options ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 22, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Cardiovascular Risk and Blood Cholesterol in Old and Older Individuals
The approach of lowering blood cholesterol via statins and similar medications slows the onset of atherosclerosis and consequent stroke and heart attack, but it isn't anywhere near as large an effect as we would like. This class of therapy isn't a cure and cannot be a cure, in the sense of removing existing atherosclerotic lesions, the fatty deposits that catastrophically weaken and narrow blood vessels. The latest approaches, such as PCSK9 inhibitors, can in the extreme case lower blood cholesterol to as little as 10% of human normal, but the outcome is still only a minor reversal of existing lesions. Some benefit is bett...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 17, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 2nd 2020
In conclusion, the circulating antibody repertoire has increased binding to thousands of peptides in older donors, which can be represented as an immune age. Increased immune age is associated with autoimmune disease, acute inflammatory disease severity, and may be a broadly relevant biomarker of immune function in health, disease, and therapeutic intervention. The immune age has the potential for wide-spread use in clinical and consumer settings. In Vivo Reprogramming Improves Cognitive Function in Old Mice https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/10/in-vivo-reprogramming-improves-cognitive-function-in-old-mi...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 1, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Targeting Aging is the Way to Treat Diseases of Aging
Near all work to date on the treatment of age-related disease has failed to consider or target underlying mechanisms of aging, the molecular damage that accumulates to cause pathology. It has instead involved one or another attempt to manipulate the complicated, disrrayed state of cellular metabolism in late stage disease, chasing proximate causes of pathology that are far downstream of the mechanisms of aging. This strategy has largely failed, and where it has succeeded has produced only modest benefits. Consider that statins, widely thought to be a major success in modern medicine, do no more than somewhat reduce and del...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 26, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

A New Drug That Lowers Cholesterol
A cholesterol-lowering option for statins users who experience some side effects. → Support PsyBlog for just $5 per month. Enables access to articles marked (M) and removes ads. → Explore PsyBlog's ebooks, all written by Dr Jeremy Dean: Accept Yourself: How to feel a profound sense of warmth and self-compassion The Anxiety Plan: 42 Strategies For Worry, Phobias, OCD and Panic Spark: 17 Steps That Will Boost Your Motivation For Anything Activate: How To Find Joy Again By Changing What You Do (Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog)
Source: PsyBlog | Psychology Blog - October 19, 2020 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Mina Dean Tags: Cholesterol Source Type: blogs

Latest in lipidology: is lipoprotein(a), Lp(a), "the most dangerous particle you ’ve never heard of"?
Dr Attia's podcast on Lp(a), the link is here:https://peterattiamd.com/tomdayspring6/Discussed:- ApoB as a preferred metric over LDL-P [16:30]; Atherogenic lipoproteins (apoB/LDL-P) as front and center in pathogenesis of CVD. ApoB and LDL-P are used interchangeably, but this is not quite accurate.- Therapeutic goals for apoB concentration [21:45]-Lipoprotein(a)—the most dangerous particle you’ve never heard of [55:00];preferred lab measurements [1:17:45]; Lipoprotein(a), or Lp(a), is a distinctive particle with 2 components:  - a lipoprotein core that resembles LDL-  a shell that contains apolipopro...
Source: Clinical Cases and Images - Blog - October 16, 2020 Category: Universities & Medical Training Tags: Cardiology Source Type: blogs