Earlier this week, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute stopped the randomized clinical trial known as AIM-HIGH (Atherothrombosis Intervention in Metabolic Syndrome with Low HDL/High Triglycerides: Impact on Global Health). It had been designed to test the addition of high-dose, extended-release niacin to statins in people who were at risk for cardiovascular events, had well-controlled LDL levels, but also had low HDL and elevated triglyceride levels (See CardioExchange’s news item describing details about the trial and the decision to halt it.) We at CardioExchange put this question to one of… Continue Reading

John Mandrola is a cardiac electrophysiologist and blogger on matters medical and general. Here is a recent post from his blog, Dr John M. Guess what made the heart rhythm newswire yesterday? It wasn’t a new medicine, or a new stent, not even a new ablation catheter, and it surely wasn’t a revolution in motivating people to exercise. It was words. Rhetoric… It seems that one man, Dr. John Wilson, read all of the major implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) trials, dating back more than a decade, and found that the… Continue Reading

I’ve been surprised at the lack of fanfare surrounding the American Heart Association’s recently published scientific statement on triglycerides and cardiovascular disease (CVD). The attention it did receive focused on the lower fasting triglyceride level that is now considered optimal: <100 mg/dL. In my opinion, the real headline was the committee’s important statements in support of less drug treatment — in particular, the recommendation for a substantial increase in the triglyceride level that should trigger consideration of pharmacologic therapy. After a careful review of the recent literature, the committee concluded that… Continue Reading