6 ms·
A lot of the optimism in the discussion here is misguided. Late life heart failure and COPD has systemic roots and a heart transplant will be an expensive and p
by throwaway5752 7y ago
A lot of the optimism in the discussion here is misguided. Late life heart failure and COPD has systemic roots and a heart transplant will be an expensive and painful way of living a diminished life for a short time (see discussion on constant blood pressure/gastro bleeds and LVAD side effects). Be active, keep your BMI low, and control your blood pressure. Prevention is by far the best approach. It is great news for younger patients suffering heart failure from infection damage, congenital defect, et al., though, particularly given the disgraceful lack of organ donors. Make sure you are an organ donor.
- Pfhreak 7y agoAre there other causes of heart failure where we should retain some optimism? E.g. non-late life failures?
- throwaway5752 7y agoYes, I mentioned a couple. There are a few more (acute cardiac injury from CAD without comorbidities?) I didn't intend on being fatalistic or overly pessimistic. Not qualified nor intended as personal medical advice, but wanted to balance unrealistic optimism elsewhere in the thread.
- LinuxBender 7y agoThere are other measures being developed in this area with stem cell replacement therapy. A very common cause of late life heart failure is a depletion of stem cells and the heart eventually can't replace its own cells. There was an interview on Joe Rogan recently with a doctor that works in this area [1] [2] [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL1fEEtLaA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtL1fEEtLaA [2] - https://www.cellmedicine.com/ https://www.cellmedicine.com/
- throwaway5752 7y agoJoe Rogan gives plausible sounds cranks a platform and an imprimatur in the interest of open mindedness. But he mixes it in with good sources of information. It may be for you if you want to be exposed to controversial ideas, but if you are not careful it will make you less informed on certain topics. Saying depletion of stem cells causes age related infirmity is basically a tautology, as is with telomere lengthening. If this guy's ideas worked, he wouldn't be doing his work in Panama, hawking supplements, and appearing on Joe Rogan. He'd be among the wealthiest persons in the world. "Snake oil" works because you are selling a cure to desperate people, and fear of mortality is almost universal.
- LinuxBender 7y agoHe operates out of Panama because U.S. laws don't allow the full use of all stem cell types yet. Stem cell therapy and CRISPR are going through various legal challenges. I would expect more innovation to occur in parts of the E.U. and Japan in these areas.
- rscho 7y agoNo, he operates there because this is speculative research that is for now without a clinical basis.
- 49para 7y agoKeep your inflammation down as well, that is going to be far more of an issue than your BMI. With regard to organ donors, the meth problem is causing all sorts of heart valve infections due to users injecting impure substances into their veins. This, of course, is no issue for people in non-socialized medicine countries, but in places like Canada it puts a further strain on available hearts as the meth users end up being another drain on Cardiac resources.
- throwaway5752 7y agoHigh BMI causes chronic low level inflammation through many pathways.
- 49para 7y agoBMI is only accurate at a population level. C-reactive protein is an easy blood test to monitor.
- rscho 7y agoTo my knowledge, CRP has not been reliably identified as a marker for long-term inflammatory state monitoring without a clearly identified diagnosis such as connective tissue diseases. BTW, how does one "keep one's inflammation down"?