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A Heart-Mind Connection: The Links Between Cardiovascular And Mental Health

Too often mental health problems are dismissed as being “all in your head”. With scientific...

A False Start For Sudden Cardiac Death In Athletes And COVID-19 Vaccines

Social media outlets are once again bubbling with misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and cardiovascular...

Inflaming The Myths Of COVID-19 Vaccines

Like the phantom heart in Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, myths about...

Do COVID-19 Vaccines Fan The Flames Of Myocarditis?

Since COVID-19 emerged on the global scene, the heart has been the centre of action. Cardiovascular...

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W. Glen PyleRSS Feed of this column.

W. Glen Pyle, PhD is a Professor of Molecular Cardiology and Women's Heart Health. He is a member of the IMPART Network at Dalhousie Medicine and the Women's Heart Research Institute at BC Women's... Read More »

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Almost since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a piece of the SARS-CoV2 virus called the “spike protein” has drawn interest from researchers and healthcare professionals.

New research by Yuyang Lei and colleagues published in the journal Circulation Research sheds new light on how the spike protein might play a critical role in the widespread damage caused by SARS-CoV2, and offers insight into treating the complications of COVID-19.

Vaccine skeptics have seized on the study to cast doubt on the safety of vaccines. But a review of the study’s findings shows that the concerns raised by vaccine doubters are much ado about nothing.

There is a saying that when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

So, it should come as no surprise that vaccine skeptics worldwide are sounding the alarm about the flu shot as a real danger in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Confused? Well, it turns out the anti-vaccine activists are too.

In the Beginning, There was Misunderstanding: The Genesis of a Myth

By Glen Pyle and Gurkiran Dhuga

COVID-19 has thrown professional baseball in North America a curveball. An outbreak among players for the Miami Marlins, that has spread to the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, brings into question the infection control protocols touted by Major League Baseball.

by Gurkiran Dhuga&Glen Pyle

The fight for equality between the sexes has undoubtedly made significant advances recently. But a new meta-analysis examining sex differences in treatment for cardiovascular risk factors presents a depressing snapshot of the current state of medicine. In fact, it suggests that in order to make progress, we may need to go all the way back to the beginning. Back to primary care.

A Primary Deficiency

By Gurkiran Dhuga and Glen Pyle

Throughout the last few decades health concerns related to air pollution have been rising. Despite this focus there has been little research on the impact of air pollution on specific health conditions and mortality, even though there is a strong association between air pollution and overall life expectancy. A global study lead by researchers in Germany outlines the detrimental changes air pollution can have on human life expectancy. One surprising finding of the study was that cardiovascular disease, and not respiratory conditions, are the primary cause of early death from air pollution.

How Bad is Air Pollution?

As the search for an effective COVID19 treatment goes on, one therapy keeps re-appearing in the headlines: hydroxychloroquine. Early, observational studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat patients with COVID19 failed to show any real benefits of the drug. The ability of hydroxychloroquine to prevent the development of COVID19, however, remained largely untested. But a study on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID19 has been published and the results are not what anyone was hoping for.

The Set-Up