Genes, Environment, Development 🧬🌿🧠— A 2025 Perspective on Autism
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🧬 New insights into autism: A 2025 JCI Viewpoint highlights how hundreds of genes, polygenic risk, and specific environmental factors converge during fetal brain development to shape autism likelihood. 🧠 Early biomarkers—from infant MRI and ERPs to machine-learning models using EHR data—are accelerating earlier, more tailored interventions. 🌱 Advances in gene therapy, IGF-1 pathways, and proteomics offer emerging therapeutic possibilities. 🤝 Centering autistic voices remains essential as precision approaches evolve.
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Numbness • Nerves • Nuance 🦶⚡🧠 — Decoding Peripheral Neuropathy
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🔍 Peripheral Neuropathy: What Clinicians Should Know 🧠⚡ Peripheral neuropathy affects ~1% of adults worldwide, with diabetes accounting for more than half of all cases. The JAMA review highlights why length-dependent patterns dominate, how metabolic stress injures long axons first, and why sensory symptoms outpace motor loss. Evidence-based evaluation still begins with glucose testing, vitamin B12 with methylmalonic acid, and serum protein electrophoresis. First-line therapies for neuropathic pain — gabapentin, pregabalin, duloxetine, and tricyclics — offer meaningful...
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Stroke Risk, Stent Benefit, Surgical Uncertainty 🧠✨🔧
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
New NEJM insights on asymptomatic carotid stenosis 🧠🔍 The CREST-2 trials offer a landmark update: intensive medical therapy remains the cornerstone, while carotid stenting shows selective benefit when performed by expert operators. Endarterectomy, however, provides no significant advantage over modern medical management. With stricter blood-pressure and LDL targets, plus expanding use of PCSK9 inhibitors, the future of stroke prevention is increasingly precision-driven, medically optimized, and patient-centered. 💊📉✨ A thoughtful read for all involved in...
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UPFs, Diets, Disease: The Global Drift 🍔➡️🌍➡️⚠️
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
The new Lancet Series on ultra-processed foods offers a striking insight: as UPFs rise globally, traditional whole-food diets decline—bringing nutrient imbalance, overeating, toxic exposures, and hyper-palatable formulations that quietly reshape health trajectories. 🍔➡️⚠️ Across more than 100 prospective studies and multiple trials, higher UPF intake consistently links to obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, depression, and higher all-cause mortality. 📉🩺 The message is clear: reducing UPF consumption isn’t a wellness...
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Groceries, Guidance, Gains 🛒📞📉 — How DASH Delivery Lowers Blood Pressure
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
Home-delivered DASH-patterned groceries paired with dietitian counseling meaningfully lowered blood pressure and LDL cholesterol among Black adults living in food deserts 🥗📉—as demonstrated in the GoFresh randomized trial (JAMA). An accompanying editorial highlights why future “food-as-medicine” programs must prioritize underconsumed, health-promoting foods and align with modern evidence favoring higher-fat DASH/Mediterranean patterns 🌱🫒. A powerful reminder: the right groceries can be therapeutic.
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Hemodialysis, Cardiovascular Burden, Therapeutic Hope 🩺❤️🌊 — Can Omega-3 Fatty Acids Bend the Risk Trajectory?
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🩺 New insights in hemodialysis care. A major New England Journal of Medicine study reports that daily supplementation with long-chain omega-3 fatty acids (eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid) led to a 43% reduction in serious cardiovascular events among adults receiving maintenance hemodialysis. 🐟💙 In a population where traditional cardioprotective therapies often fall short, these findings open a fresh path for investigation — and perhaps, future practice. 📉🔬 A confirmatory trial will be essential, but the signal is compelling. 🌅
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💊 Oral, Potent, Proven — Enlicitide Redefines LDL Control
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🚀 A milestone moment in lipid therapeutics! The new JAMA trial on the oral PCSK9 inhibitor Enlicitide reports a ~60% reduction in LDL-C, with parallel decreases in ApoB and Lp(a)—all on top of maximally tolerated statin therapy. For individuals with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH)—where reaching LDL targets remains a persistent challenge—this represents a major advance. An oral agent matching the potency of injectable PCSK9 inhibitors could reshape adherence, access, and long-term ASCVD prevention. 🌉💊 Safety was comparable to placebo, and effects...
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One Cup of Coffee. Less Atrial Fib/Flutter. More Life ☕🌀➡️💛
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
☕ DECAF Trial insight! A new JAMA study shows that daily caffeinated coffee may lower recurrence of atrial fibrillation compared with abstinence. Patients drinking ~1 cup/day had 47% recurrence vs 64% with abstinence (HR 0.61, p=0.01) 📉💓 No major safety concerns—challenging long-held beliefs that coffee is proarrhythmic. 💡Takeaway: For many patients with AF, enjoying their morning brew may be both safe and possibly beneficial. #AtrialFibrillation #Cardiology #JAMA #ClinicalTrials #HeartHealth ☕💓📊
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Beyond the Culprit: Complete Revascularisation • Fewer Deaths • Better Futures 💖🩺✨
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🚨 New insights from The Lancet 🚨 A major individual-patient-data meta-analysis (6 RCTs, 8,836 patients) shows that complete revascularisation in acute myocardial infarction significantly reduces cardiovascular death, all-cause mortality, and recurrent MI. 💓📉 Benefits were consistent across age, sex, STEMI/NSTEMI, and lesion characteristics — strengthening the case for a more comprehensive approach beyond the culprit lesion alone. 🔬🩺 A powerful reminder: treating the whole heart saves more lives. ❤️✨
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Olezarsen Cuts Triglycerides. Calms Pancreas. Changes Outcomes. 🧬🔥🛡️
Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'
🧬 New NEJM data on Olezarsen! In patients with severe hypertriglyceridemia, monthly RNA-targeted therapy delivered major triglyceride reductions (−62% to −72%) and a significant drop in acute pancreatitis risk (rate ratio 0.15). ✨ Improvements extended to ApoC-III, remnant cholesterol, and non-HDL cholesterol, with consistent benefits across both CORE-TIMI trials. 💡 A promising step forward in precision lipid therapy and pancreatitis prevention.
info_outlineCOVID MATH for the Physician| Dr RR Baliga's 'Got Knowledge Doc' PodKasts for Physicians | Not Medical Advice or Opinion
Determining How Public Health Measures Might Be Slowing COVID-19 Using the Reproduction Number (Rt)