Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Light smoking is not harmless. 🚬   A powerful New England Journal of Medicine Perspective highlights the rising challenge of nondaily and low-intensity smokers in Latin America. Even fewer than 10 cigarettes per day carry meaningful cardiovascular and cancer risk — yet these smokers often underestimate harm and receive limited cessation support.   The future of tobacco control must address the “light” smoker with tailored counseling, pharmacotherapy, and smarter primary-care integration.

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

🧠 Alzheimer’s doesn’t begin when memory fails — it begins years earlier.   A new Cell Reports Medicine study identifies PPP2R5C, a brain-derived protein detectable in blood, that declines before significant Tau hyperphosphorylation.   📉 ↓ 61% in amnestic mild cognitive impairment 📊 AUC 0.85 for Alzheimer’s diagnosis 🔬 Mechanism: activates Protein Phosphatase 2A and ULK1-driven autophagy to regulate Tau   A blood signal before symptoms. Early detection means earlier intervention.

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

🧠 Can a simple blood test tell us when Alzheimer’s symptoms will begin?   A new Nature Medicine study introduces a plasma p-tau217 “molecular clock” that estimates time to symptom onset with an error margin of ~3–4 years. By modeling the rise of phosphorylated tau in cognitively unimpaired individuals, investigators move from predicting if to predicting when.   ⏳ Implication: smarter prevention trials, earlier intervention windows, and biologically timed enrollment.   ⚠️ Not ready for routine screening—but a compelling proof of concept.   The era of...

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

The brain’s “skull drains” are far from passive plumbing.   In Nature (2026), Monaghan et al. show that dural venous sinuses actively constrict, dilate, and even rearrange endothelial borders in a phenomenon called “ruffling” to support immune surveillance.   RAMP1 regulates vasomotion. RAMP2 regulates immune boundary dynamics. Blocking RAMP2 impairs antiviral defense.   The meninges are not coverings. They are regulated neuroimmune interfaces. 🧠🛡️

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Can we finally modulate post-stroke inflammation? 🧠   The EMPHASIS trial (Lancet 2026) randomized 1,724 patients with acute ischemic stroke to short-course oral minocycline within 72h.   Result: higher rates of excellent 90-day outcome (mRS 0–1 52.6% vs 47.4%; RR 1.11, p=0.0061) without safety concerns.   A cheap, generic drug showing signal in late neuroprotection.   Inflammation may not just follow stroke — it may shape recovery. 🔬

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

🦴 Rotator cuff “tears” are nearly universal after age 40. In a population-based Finnish study (n=602), 99% had ≥1 MRI abnormality — including 96% of asymptomatic shoulders. Even full-thickness tears were usually silent, and adjusted analyses eliminated differences between painful and painless shoulders  . Lesson? After 40, imaging abnormalities are common — causality is not. Treat function. Treat symptoms. Treat patients — not scans.

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) lived two extraordinary lives in one lifetime — revolutionary nationalist and visionary yogi.   From the Alipore trial to the quietude of Pondicherry, he shifted the conversation from political freedom to inner evolution. His Integral Yoga proposed something radical: not escape from the world, but transformation of it — a movement from mind to “Supermind,” from human to supramental consciousness.   The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, and Savitri remain profound explorations of human potential and spiritual evolution.   A thinker of...

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Chronic lymphoedema may not just be about fluid. It may be about cholesterol. 🧬   In human tissue and translational mouse models, impaired lymphatic drainage led to excess dermal cholesterol deposition, adipocyte dysfunction, fibrosis, and swelling — even when plasma cholesterol was normal.   Clearing tissue cholesterol with cyclodextrin restored lymphatic architecture and reduced oedema.   Clear the cholesterol. Restore the flow

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Psychedelic medicine is moving from the margins to mainstream neuroscience. 🧠✨   A recent Nature Medicine review synthesizes the biology behind the renaissance: 5-HT2A signaling, acute brain desynchronization, and a subacute plasticity window driven by BDNF–TrkB pathways.   The promise is real — rapid effects in depression, PTSD, and addiction — but so are the challenges: expectancy, unblinding, scalability, and safety.   Entropy. Plasticity. Psychiatry. 🔬   A field worth watching — carefully, rigorously, and responsibly.

Dr. RR Baliga's 'Podkast for the Kurious Doc'

Are statins as risky as labels suggest? 📊   In a 154,664-patient individual-participant meta-analysis of 23 double-blind RCTs, only 4 of 66 listed adverse effects were confirmed — mainly small, dose-related liver enzyme elevations.   No causal signal for cognitive decline, depression, sleep disturbance, neuropathy, or kidney injury.   Absolute excess risks were tiny (<0.1% per year).   Cardiovascular benefit still overwhelmingly outweighs risk. Evidence matters. 💡