Articles on the heart and metabolism: blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, heart rhythm and the risk factors that link them. Chest pain, breathlessness or fainting need urgent care, not reading.
Living with cardiac amyloidosis usually rests on three ongoing habits: regular heart-rhythm checks, because slow conduction and atrial fibrillation are common in an amyloid…
Inflammatory heart disease, which includes myocarditis, pericarditis and endocarditis, is diagnosed by combining several tests rather than any single one. Doctors typically start with…
A blood clot in the heart is usually treated with anticoagulant medicines, often called blood thinners, which stop the clot from growing while the…
After an EP study you lie flat because the catheters enter through a large vein in the groin, and that vein needs steady pressure…
Congenital heart disease treatment is matched to the specific defect, its size and how it affects blood flow, not to a single standard plan.…
After cardiothoracic surgery, most people spend about one to two days in intensive care, roughly a week in the hospital, and then recover at…
Type 1 diabetes cannot currently be reversed. It is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system destroys the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas,…
Cardiac MRI and PET-CT detect cardiac sarcoidosis in complementary ways. MRI uses a gadolinium-based contrast agent to reveal scar and tissue swelling in the…
A cardiac rehab assessment before starting usually combines a resting electrocardiogram (ECG), an exercise stress test or a walking test, blood pressure and blood…
Swelling from the knee down usually means fluid is pooling in the tissues because the veins, lymph vessels, heart, kidneys, or liver are not…
A dental check before heart valve surgery looks for gum infection, abscesses and loose or decayed teeth, because bacteria from the mouth can enter…
Stents and bypass surgery both restore blood flow to a heart starved by narrowed coronary arteries, but they suit different patterns of disease. Stents…
A leaking heart valve, or regurgitation, ranges from a trivial finding that never causes trouble to a serious condition that strains the heart over…
Preparing for a stent procedure usually means three things: not eating for several hours beforehand, a blood test to check how well your kidneys…
Sarcopenia is the progressive loss of muscle mass and strength that comes with aging. Declines begin around age 40 and accelerate after 60. Common…
Most aortic aneurysms are monitored with scans and repaired only when the risk of rupture begins to outweigh the risk of surgery. For an…
Arrhythmia ablation is a catheter procedure in which thin tubes are threaded through a vein, usually in the groin, to the heart, where the…
Hyperlipidemia means blood lipids, meaning cholesterol, triglycerides, or both, are higher than guideline ranges. Dyslipidemia is the broader term: any unhealthy lipid pattern, including…
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