Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🦵❤️ Peripheral Artery Disease is not just a leg problem—it’s a life-threatening cardiovascular signal.   Up to 60% of patients are asymptomatic, yet PAD doubles to triples the risk of myocardial infarction, stroke, and death. Evidence is clear: exercise therapy, statins, antiplatelet or rivaroxaban-based strategies, blood-pressure control, and GLP-1/SGLT2 therapies save limbs and lives.   🚶‍♂️💊🫀 When walking hurts—or quietly fades—cardiovascular risk rises. PAD deserves the same urgency as coronary disease.   #PeripheralArteryDisease...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🫀 What do the 2026 AHA Statistics really tell us?   The latest AHA update makes one message unmistakably clear: prevention works—but only when systems work. From Life’s Essential 8 🧭 to the rise of cardiovascular–kidney–metabolic (CKM) health 🩺🧪, the data show that blood pressure control, sleep 😴, physical activity 🚶‍♂️, nutrition 🥗, and nicotine cessation 🚭 shape not only heart outcomes, but brain health 🧠, equity ⚖️, and healthcare costs 💰.   The challenge ahead isn’t discovering new risk factors—it’s implementing what we...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa showed that spiritual truth is lived, not debated 🌼🙏 Through devotion, deep experience, and simple parables, he taught that all religions are different paths to the same Reality 🛤️✨ His enduring message—serve humanity as the Divine—continues to inspire seekers, caregivers, and leaders alike ❤️🌍

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

CRT—now framed as cardiac physiologic pacing—remains a cornerstone for HFrEF patients with LVEF ≤50% and either high ventricular pacing burden or a wide QRS, with the biggest gains in LBBB and QRS ≥150 ms. ⚡🫀📈 Traditional biventricular pacing has randomized-trial evidence (>10,000 patients) showing better symptoms, quality of life, remodeling, fewer HF hospitalizations, and survival benefit in selected groups; meanwhile His bundle and left bundle branch pacing are rapidly expanding options, with large randomized trials underway to define comparative efficacy and safety....

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🩺 Hypertension control in the U.S. has stalled—despite better meds, better evidence, and better tools. 📉 The “paradox” isn’t a mystery so much as a systems problem: therapeutic inertia, fragmented care, cost barriers, and inconsistent use of validated home BP monitoring. 🧩   What works is boring (and therefore powerful): standardized treatment protocols, team-based care, rapid follow-up, combination therapy when appropriate, and performance feedback loops. 🧰📊   If we treat BP control like a reliable system—rather than a heroic, one-visit effort—we can move...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🧬 Why does cancer mostly strike later in life? This review frames an elegant answer: evolution built layered anti-cancer “barriers” optimized to protect us through reproductive years—not indefinitely. 🛡️   With aging, those safeguards fray: tissues remodel, epigenetic “noise” rises, inflammation smolders, and immune surveillance softens—so clones that were once contained can progress. 🕰️🔥   A favorite reminder is 🐘 Peto’s paradox: bigger, longer-lived species aren’t overwhelmed by cancer, suggesting nature can evolve stronger defenses when fitness...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🏃‍♀️🏋️‍♂️ Does variety in physical activity matter for longevity? A large prospective analysis suggests it does: people who engaged in a wider mix of activity types tended to have lower all-cause mortality, even after accounting for total activity and key covariates. 🌈📉   Key practical takeaway: don’t just “do more”—do different (walk + cycle + swim + strength, etc.). ✅🫀   As always, this is observational data (residual confounding + self-report remain). Still, it’s a compelling nudge toward diversity in movement as a realistic,...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

🧠❤️ Rewiring the Heart—Literally   A striking Science Translational Medicine study shows that early reconnection of the right vagus nerve to the heart preserves ventricular mechanics, synchrony, and myocardial health—even when only ~20% of vagal fibers regenerate. 🧵🫀   Using a clinically relevant minipig model, the authors demonstrate that loss of parasympathetic input drives oxidative stress, inflammation, and premature cardiac aging—while targeted nerve repair reverses these pathways, independent of heart rate. 📉➡️📈   Implications: thoracic...

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

Friedrich Nietzsche challenged the modern mind to think bravely, live honestly, and create meaning rather than inherit it 🧠⚡ From “God is dead” to self-overcoming, his ideas push us to confront nihilism and affirm life with courage and creativity 🔥🎭 More than a philosopher, Nietzsche remains a provocation—asking each of us: what values will you create? 🚀📚

Dr. Baliga's 'Podkasts for Curious Docs'

Did you know the fat around our arteries is more than just padding? 🧬🩺 Recent findings show that deleting PRDM16 in perivascular adipose tissue transforms protective beige fat into fibrotic tissue, upregulating QSOX1 and driving hypertension 🩸📈. Activating brown fat or targeting QSOX1 could offer novel therapies. As internists, staying curious about adipose–vascular cross-talk might reshape how we tackle hypertension. 💡🔥 #Cardiology #InternalMedicine #Hypertension”