Byrne NJ, Soni S, Takahara S, et al. Chronically Elevating Circulating Ketones Can Reduce Cardiac Inflammation and Blunt the Development of Heart Failure. Circ Heart Fail. 2020;13(6):e006573. doi:10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.119.006573
Fasting for Chemotherapy Induced Heart Failure?
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
Release Date: 03/20/2024
The Genetics of GLP-1 Response 🧬💊📊
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
Why do GLP-1 therapies transform some patients—and barely move the needle in others? 🧬💉 A recent Nature study (~28,000 participants) identifies GLP1R and GIPR variants linked to both weight loss efficacy and GI side effects. 📊 Signal: modest for weight loss, stronger for tolerability 🧠 Insight: genetics + clinical factors explain ~25% variability 🚀 Implication: early steps toward precision obesity therapeutics The future may not be “one drug fits all,” but one genome, one strategy.
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Master Athletes and Cardiovascular Risk
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
Master athletes challenge one of medicine’s most elegant assumptions: that fitness always protects. In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC) consensus statement on athletes with abnormal cardiovascular findings, a paradox emerges—higher fitness, yet distinct patterns of risk: atrial fibrillation, coronary calcium, myocardial fibrosis. The lesson is not to discourage exercise—but to refine our lens. For the clinician: risk stratification must be individualized. For the athlete: performance and prudence must coexist. 🏃♂️ The heart...
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Move. Maintain. Multiply: Midlife Activity and Mortality Mastery 🏃♀️
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
A compelling study in : sustained moderate-to-vigorous physical activity across midlife is associated with a ~50% reduction in all-cause mortality in women (target trial emulation). Not intensity, not intermittence—consistency is the signal. For clinicians, the prescription is enduring: move often, move steadily, move for life. 🏃♀️💓 #PLOSMedicine #PreventiveCardiology #LifestyleMedicine #HealthyAging
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Dhanvantari and the Birth of Ayurveda: Divine Origins. Living Science. Timeless Healing 🕉️🌿
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
The origins of medicine are not merely scientific—they are deeply philosophical. In our Great Doctors Series, we begin with Dhanvantari, the divine physician of Ayurveda, emerging from myth into method. From the Ocean of Milk to the clinics of today, this episode explores how healing began as a sacred science. For students and physicians alike, it is a reminder that medicine is not just practiced—it is inherited, refined, and reimagined across centuries. 🌿🩺✨ 🎬 “Before medicine became a science, it was a gift—from the gods to humanity.”
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South Asians and ACS: The SMuRF-less Paradox 🎭🧠💔
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
A fascinating and somewhat unsettling observation from JACC: Asia: nearly 1 in 4 STEMI patients in New Delhi had no traditional risk factors—no hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, or smoking. Yet outcomes tell a different story. Despite fewer signs of heart failure at presentation, these patients had worse left ventricular dysfunction and identical in-hospital and 1-year mortality compared with those with standard risk factors. This “SMuRF-less paradox” challenges our conventional risk models. It reminds us that absence of risk factors is not absence of risk. We may need to think...
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Cardiogenic Shock: 🏥 ICU to Life Again
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
A thoughtful and important JACC State-of-the-Art Review reframes cardiogenic shock not as a single ICU event, but as a longitudinal survivorship journey. The article highlights recovery, remission, native heart survival, PICS, HF GDMT optimization, and the need for structured multidisciplinary postshock clinics focused on function, cognition, quality of life, and recurrent risk after discharge. A timely call to move from rescue alone to rescue plus recovery.
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Beyond Aspirin, Clopidogrel Rising: A New Era 💊➡️🧬🚀
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
A landmark 10-year follow-up of the HOST-EXAM trial published in The Lancet challenges a century-old assumption: aspirin may no longer be the default for lifelong secondary prevention after PCI. Clopidogrel demonstrated a sustained reduction in ischemic and bleeding events (HR 0.86, p=0.005), with benefits that accumulated over time—yet without a mortality difference. The implication is subtle but profound: we may be witnessing the quiet reshaping of antiplatelet strategy. In cardiology, tradition often lingers—but data, eventually, prevails.
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🧠 One Year after Myocardial Infarction: Do Beta-Blockers Still Matter?
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
🫀 In the New England Journal of Medicine, the SMART-DECISION trial asks a practical modern question: after myocardial infarction, should stable patients without heart failure or marked left ventricular systolic dysfunction remain on beta-blockers indefinitely? In this randomized noninferiority trial, stopping beta-blockers after at least 1 year was noninferior to continuing them for the composite of death, recurrent myocardial infarction, or hospitalization for heart failure. A provocative study that may help us prune old habits with newer evidence.
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🎯 Lower. Further. Better: The New LDL Frontier
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
The New England Journal of Medicine has now given us randomized trial evidence for a question long guided more by extrapolation than by direct proof: in patients with established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, targeting LDL cholesterol to <55 mg/dL beat a target of <70 mg/dL over 3 years. In Ez-PAVE, the primary end point occurred in 6.6% vs 9.7%, with a hazard ratio of 0.67, supporting a more intensive LDL strategy for secondary prevention. Elegant trial, practical message: when risk is high, lower may truly be better. 🫀📉🎯 Journal: New England Journal of...
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Nine Rules, Stronger Hearts: 2026 AHA Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health
Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'
New in Circulation: the 2026 AHA Dietary Guidance to Improve Cardiovascular Health distills prevention into 9 elegant features—maintain healthy weight, emphasize vegetables/fruits, choose whole grains, favor healthier proteins and unsaturated fats, minimize ultraprocessed foods, added sugars, and sodium, and avoid starting alcohol for health. Food, here, is not garnish; it is strategy. 🥗🌾🩺 #Cardiology #Preven
info_outlineFasting for Chemotherapy Induced Heart Failure?
Dr RR Baliga's 'Got Knowledge Doc' PodKasts for Physicians
de Groot S, Lugtenberg RT, Cohen D, et al. Fasting mimicking diet as an adjunct to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer in the multicentre randomized phase 2 DIRECT trial. Nat Commun. 2020;11(1):3083. Published 2020 Jun 23. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16138-3
Not Medical Advice or Opinion