Most of us like our news (medical or otherwise) pre-digested into understandable chunks for consumption. This need for this is inevitable because we expect to…
Salt Intake, Life Expectancy and Mortality: A Not-So-Salty Story for the Holidays
Numerous publications attest to the observation that a high salt intake can trigger hypertensive cardiovascular disease de novo or accelerate pre-existing hypertension. For decades practicing physicians have warned their patients about excessive salt intake.
CVCT Forum 2020: An Interview with John Teerlink about Omecamtiv
What’s unique about omecamtiv? Darrel Francis speaks to GALACTIC-HF PI, John Teerlink about that dirty word in heart failure… “inotrope”. The new language is myotropes,…
CVCT Forum 2020: An Interview with Paul Armstrong about Vericiguat
Darrel Francis speaks to Paul Armstrong, PI of the VICTORIA trial, about the mechanism of new heart failure drug, Vericiguat, and the trial’s unusual power calculation: “The trial was deliberately overpowered on the primary endpoint”.
Charlie and the Medicine Factory (Do we really need to understand mechanisms?)
One of my favorite books growing up was “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. I revelled in the comeuppance meted out to the likes of Augustus…
CVCT Forum 2020: An Interview with Dan Mark on Patient-Reported Outcomes in Angina
At the Patient-Reported Outcome Session of CVCT Forum 2020, Dan Mark discussed the angina results of ISCHEMIA and ORBITA and the placebo effect.
CVCT Forum Teaser 2020: SGLT2 inhibitor trials in CKD
SGLT2 inhibitors are probably the hottest new drug on the scene in cardiology this year. They were bandied about for lowering glucose in diabetes but…
What Happened to Hospital Attendance: A Perception Trap
Hospital admissions for almost everything came to almost a complete halt this year because of the pandemic. In March and April 2020, people stopped coming…
James Stein Interview with SAMSON senior author Darrel Francis: Statin Side Effects – The Symptoms are Real
The SAMSON trial recruited patients who had given up statins for good due to side effects. Why was the trial needed and what do the…
Cardiology Research: Business As Usual During the Pandemic
The middle of a raging pandemic is no time for business-as-usual research studies, especially when the studies falsely purport to shed light on that pandemic. Such papers have all the appearance of high quality science. They have a ton of data and a lot of big words but they’re incapable of providing reliable or useful information that can aid in our understanding and control of the health emergency.