Chief #Innovation Officer at @ACCinTouch | Cardiology @MassGeneralNews @Harvard | #digitalhealth #AI | Views mine not advice
Jul 21 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
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.
Jul 14 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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.
Jul 11 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
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.
Jun 2 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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.
May 23 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
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.
May 21 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
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.
May 14 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
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.
May 12 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
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.
May 9 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Apr 25 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Apr 14 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
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.
Mar 25 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
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.
Mar 4 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
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.
Feb 17 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
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?