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I believe a key quality of a good doctor is to be humble. This can take many forms, but with respect to these coming posts, I mean the following. Humans, and doctors in particular in my experience, tend to become rather tied to their beliefs and convictions, especially as they get older. However, a good […]

I often get asked by patients what time of day is best to take their medication, particularly with respect to blood pressure. There have been a few clinical trials looking at this with slightly surprising results. Two new trials have really put the topic to bed though, and in this week’s research video you can […]

It certainly seems like summer is over now! I’ve packed away the garden furniture, turned our leftover home grown tomatoes into chutney (which is absolutely delicious by the way – tomato, red onion, chilli, paprika, cardamom) and mown the lawn for possibly the last time this year.  It’s been a tough weekend actually. My parent’s […]

Do you take any medications? Or supplements? I do. Perhaps supplements is a post for another time, but I do want to mention something on medication. I take a nasal steroid spray, and have done daily for about 12 years. Truth be told I really should have been on it lifelong, as I have had […]

Today I want to update you about something incredibly common, and will likely have touched many of our lives one way or other: coronary artery disease. There’s so much to say it’s hard to know where to start, as there were so many related sessions presented at the European Society of Cardiology meeting. Let’s start […]

Life is back to normality now having involved a lot of travel over the last few weeks. The European Society of Cardiology meeting last week has provided so much content it will keep me going for a few weeks at least. Now I’ve had time to organise my thoughts, I think breaking the conference down […]

It’s been a working weekend for me, as I have been lucky enough to attend the European Society of Cardiology meeting in London. It’s possibly the largest cardiology meeting in the world, rotating through a number of major European cities each year. There are 10s of thousands of delegates, hundreds of stands and presentation. It […]

Back to work with a bump on Friday morning having got home shortly before midnight. Do you sometimes feel like you need a holiday to get over a holiday? I’m sure I do! Luckily there’s a bank holiday to look forward to. I opened my inbox of 365 unread emails and sighed.  I would like […]

Week 2 in Sri Lanka, and it’s been a fabulous holiday. The people, food and weather have all been amazing. The only downside was some inadvertent gluten for my daughter who has coeliac disease and the poor thing wasn’t well for a day, but overall finding gluten-free options has been fine. I’m writing this blog […]

Greetings from Sri Lanka! I’m away for 2 weeks, but of course that won’t stop me writing my blog, and indeed filming. Do check out this week’s video on polyphenols – what they are, why they are important, and how you can get more of them. I’m a little hamstrung by the hotel wifi – […]

I’m changing tack a little this week for my blog, on account of a couple of different patients I’ve seen which have highlighted what I think is a really common problem, and indeed misconception in my view. Let me explain. The first is a lady in her 80s who has had atrial fibrillation (AF)  in […]

What a beautiful weekend! Shame I’ve been on-call all week and it’s been very busy. At the end of on-call weeks I often like to write my blog on an interesting case I’ve seen, and try to tease out any learning points that are of value to the public. Today is no exception, but there […]

I would say the context I get asked about the menopause most is with regard to symptoms of palpitations, followed by the risk of heart attacks around this time in a woman’s life. More and more women are seeking advice and guidance about these topics as general public awareness grows.  As a 46 year old […]

I have been thinking of writing and videoing about women and the heart for a little while, and a patient I saw this week has prompted me to do so today. She had symptoms that were not necessarily typical for a heart problem and had struggled to get a diagnosis, but when we ran some […]

You will notice that I have a number of videos on cholesterol on my website, which is one of the commonest topics I get asked about. These days though, we have moved well beyond standard cholesterol panels. I discuss such things as Apolipoproteins and Lipoprotein (a) -Lp(a) for short- in those videos, but in brief […]

Consistency over intensity is a motto I try and instil in my patients, and indeed myself. What do I mean by this? Changing behaviours to be more health focused is hard. If it were easy, two thirds of the population wouldn’t be overweight. Improving fitness (and we can debate how we measure that) is the […]

The recent tragic death of Dr Michael Mosley I’m sure gave many people cause to reflect. Here was someone who dedicated much of his life to preventative medicine, yet lost his life in a seemingly random and terribly unfortunate way. I could cite a number of other examples of doctors I know who have just […]

Happy Father’s Day! I’ve had a lovely day: bike ride and some yoga with my daughter, a few holes of golf with my son (who bought be some personalised golf balls with instructions not to lose them!) and will be having a bbq in the sunshine then watching the football. Pretty much a perfect day. […]

Well it really has been an extraordinary week for me! Very occasionally I get offers that are hard to turn down. A few months ago I was asked by a company that make pacemakers (amongst a great many other medical things) if they could show me around their factory and pick my brains. There have […]

You may know I’m a keen Arsenal fan, so whenever a story crops up involving the club I tend to take a look, and so it was this week with former Gunners mid-fielder Jack Wilshere. He is a British Heart Foundation ambassador, having been on a long journey with his young daughter who had surgery […]

I had a great time at last week’s conference in Lisbon. Sat on the flight home, I was reflecting on what were the most enjoyable bits.  I liked the ‘late breaking scientific sessions’, where researchers first let the scientific community know the results of their trials. There’s something about hearing new data, feeling like you […]

Back to the theme of dementia, and we are at week 3. A question I have asked myself many times is can dementia be prevented? Billions are spent looking for treatments, and hopefully success will come, but what if there were ways we could reduce our risk in the first place? Primary prevention is the […]

For over a decade, scientists have thought that if amyloid protein is the primary problem in dementia, the key to treatment must be drugs which reduce its production or stimulate its clearance from the brain. Initial efforts however, whilst they reduced the amount of protein, did little to improve clinical symptoms and outcomes.  Studies are […]