Most people think breathing is automatic.

They think it doesn’t matter how they do it.

Wrong.

Breathing through your mouth can disrupt your sleep, weaken your heart, suppress immunity, and tank performance.

Here’s what nobody tells you about the air you inhale. Your nose isn’t just for smelling. It’s a built-in air filter and conditioner.

When you breathe through your nose, the air gets warmed to body temperature, humidified, and cleansed of dust, pollen, and harmful particles.

Your mouth can’t do any of that.

Most people try to “cut out junk” for a healthier heart.

But cutting junk isn’t enough. That’s damage control—not healing.

Some foods actually protect your heart and repair your arteries.

Here are 6 foods that actually heal your heart:🧵
(This isn’t medical advice—just something interesting to think about. No endorsements, just sharing.) 1) Apples:

Apples aren’t just “healthy snacks.”
They do real work.

Soluble fiber lowers LDL cholesterol.

Polyphenols protect blood vessels from damage.

Daily apples = lower heart disease and cardiac death risk.

Tip: Eat them whole.
Juicing removes the fiber.

A new study with over 500,000 participants studied which habits protects the heart against sudden cardiac arrest.

What they discovered will shock you:
(This isn’t medical advice—just something interesting to think about. No endorsements, just sharing.) Every year, millions of people worldwide die when their heart suddenly stops beating.

This is called sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), and sometimes happens with little to no warning.

You’re ignoring the strongest weapon against heart disease.

It lowers cholesterol. Lowers blood pressure. Fights inflammation. Slows artery aging.

It’s not a drug.
It’s not expensive.

It’s fiber.
And it’s already on your plate.🧵
(This isn’t medical advice—just something interesting to think about. No endorsements, just sharing.) Let’s unpack how it works, and why every plate after age 30 matters more than you think.

Let’s start with the basics.

What is fiber?
It’s the part of plant foods your body can’t digest.

That sounds useless, but it’s exactly what makes it powerful.

There are two types:

You’ve been told to run, bike, or hit the gym to keep your heart healthy.

But here’s the truth: most people can’t stick to intense workouts.

What if the most effective exercise is already part of your daily life?

It’s called functional fitness. And it's really simple.🧵
(This isn’t medical advice—just something interesting to think about. No endorsements, just sharing.) Traditional workouts focus on reps, machines, and intensity.

But research shows most people quit—not because they’re lazy, but because it doesn’t fit their life.

Your heart needs consistency, not punishment.

That’s where functional fitness comes in.

What if I told you…
Your body can remember.

Not just your brain.
Your kidneys, your immune cells, even your skin…

New research shows memory isn’t just something that happens in your mind.
It’s happening all throughout your body.

Let me explain (this will change how you think about stress, habits, and healing). For a long time, science believed memory lived only in the brain.
You experience something → neurons store it → synapses strengthen with repetition.

This is how we learn, form habits, and recall the past.
Until recently, that was the full story.

As cardiologists, we spend a lot of time exploring how genes influence the heart. If you don't do this for a living, it may seem like science fiction.

So, for those of you who don't study genetics, here's some real science that is happening as we speak with the genetics of heart health.

A groundbreaking study from Dr. Natarajan’s team just dropped, introducing “Proxitropy” a concept that could revolutionize how we understand genetic influence on the heart.

Here's what it means for heart health: 🧵 Heart disease is complex.

For years, we’ve known genes play a role in conditions like heart failure or high blood pressure, but pinning down how has been tricky.

Many genetic studies focus on single DNA changes, missing the bigger picture of how our genome works together.

The Apple Watch gets a lot of attention. Why?

Let's talk about what it can and can't do for your heart. Medical professionals and patients, see below for the ACC Apple Watch Guide. As always, this is not medical advice.

For those who are new to digital health, here's an example of how FDA approved wearables are quietly transforming cardiovascular care: Most people still see the Apple Watch as a fitness tracker.
But it’s more than that, it’s an FDA-cleared medical device for specific indications.

Packed inside are tools for tracking heart rhythm, catching atrial fibrillation, and even helping doctors monitor patients remotely.

A 58-year-old doctor.
Fit. Plant-based diet. Played competitive tennis.

No symptoms. No warning signs.
But during a routine scan, AI found a blocked coronary artery and potentially saved his life.

Here’s how AI caught what no one else could 🧵👇 He was the picture of health.

Ate clean
Stayed active
No chest pain
No shortness of breath.

But heart disease doesn’t always announce itself.
In fact, over 50% of heart attacks strike with zero prior symptoms.

Imagine being 26 years old.

Young, healthy, full of life.

Then suddenly, you’re rushed to the hospital with a heart attack.

That’s exactly what happened to a young man from Texas.

This is his story: This guy loved energy drinks

He wasn’t sipping them casually.

He drank 8-10 cans every single day — for years.

He said it made him feel alive, energized, ready to take on the world.

But inside, it was a different story.
And it wasn’t just the energy drinks.

Doctors opened a man’s chest for routine surgery.

What they saw stopped them cold.

His blood wasn’t red—it was green.
No trauma. No sci-fi twist.

Just a rare reaction to a common migraine med.

Here’s how it happened—and why it matters more than you think: Let’s rewind a bit.

The man had been dealing with severe migraines for quite a while.

To manage the pain, he regularly took a medication called sumatriptan.

It’s a common and effective migraine treatment that many people use.

A 46-year-old. Dying from heart failure. No donor heart in sight.

Then doctors did the unthinkable—they stitched a tiny, lab-grown patch onto her still-beating heart.

No transplant. No machine. Just living tissue, regenerating her heart from the inside.

Here's the full story: Heart failure is more than a medical term—it’s life-changing.

Over 64 million people worldwide have it, many after a heart attack, high blood pressure, or other conditions that weaken the heart.

Your heart struggles to pump blood. Even walking feels exhausting.

What is 1,3,7-Trimethylxanthine?

It sounds like a chemical experiment.
But it’s actually something you probably had today—caffeine.

Within 45 minutes of drinking coffee, caffeine spreads through your blood.

It peaks between 15 minutes & 2 hrs.

But here’s where it gets scary🧵

(Note: stories are sad, but do happen. They reflect uneducated, unaware or reckless use of caffeine). Drinking 70 cups of coffee at once could actually kill you.

Crazy, right?

But what’s even deadlier is pure caffeine powder.

Just 1 teaspoon of this powder equals about 28 cups of coffee worth of caffeine.

Imagine this:

A patient is in the middle of life-saving heart surgery...

And unexpectedly, a small fire breaks out in their chest cavity.

Yes — this actually happened in 2019 during a high-risk aortic repair surgery on a 60-year-old man.

Here’s the full story:🧵 First, aortic surgery is one of the most complex procedures.

It’s about repairing the aorta — the main artery carrying blood out of the heart.

It demands precision and care.
But in this case, it wasn’t a surgical error that changed the course...

It was something much more unusual.

In 1929, a 25-year-old doctor cut into his own arm and inserted a catheter into his heart.

No permission, no supervision, just sheer defiance.

He risked death to prove a theory no one believed.

His insane gamble saved millions of lives.

Here's his story: Forssmann was just 25 years old when he made history.

As an intern at a small hospital near Berlin, he had an idea: what if doctors could access the heart without surgery?

It sounded impossible and his superiors dismissed him outright.

Scientists are cloning humans in a lab—without ever using real DNA.

Digital twins simulate patients, cutting trial risks, and speeding up drug tests.

This is the future of medicine.🧵
Developing new drugs is a long, expensive, and sometimes, uncertain journey.

AI promised a shortcut but unlocking its true power has been hard.

This is where digital twins step in.

In 1967, a surgeon stopped a beating heart—on purpose.

It was the first human heart transplant, but behind the history was risk, controversy, and an ethical gray zone.

For the patient, it was his only chance.

Here’s the story behind the first heart transplant ever:🧵 Dr. Christiaan Barnard wasn’t just any surgeon. He was bold, ambitious, and determined to push the boundaries of medicine.

At the time, heart transplants were theoretical. Doctors had tried them on animals, but no one had dared to perform them on humans.

In 1958, this man’s heart kept stopping—20 times a day.

Doctors had no solution.

Then his wife demanded an experimental surgery that had only been tested on dogs.

What happened next changed medicine forever. 🧵 For most of history, if your heart failed, that was it—you were as good as gone.

There was no real solution.

Well, until 1958.

Arne Larsson, a Swedish engineer, was diagnosed with complete heart block—a condition that caused his heart to beat dangerously slow or stop entirely.

Two patients. Same symptoms. Different diagnoses.

AI models can have up to 15-40% lower accuracy for underrepresented groups.

Women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed in cardiovascular cases due to biased training data.

Here are the pitfalls of trusting AI: Imagine two patients from different backgrounds, each with the same symptoms.

One receives an accurate diagnosis, while the other doesn’t.
The difference?