Who will get Alzheimer’s disease?

In five to ten years, pharmaceutical companies will likely be on the threshold of delivering drugs or other treatments that can slow down or stop Alzheimer’s disease before it starts. Who should be treated with these hypothetical compounds? Everyone? That would be prohibitively expensive, and even dangerous if—as…

Heart failure with normal ejection fraction

The ejection fraction is the amount of blood pumped out with each heart beat and is a measure of the heart's overall capacity and function. A normal ejection fraction is between 55 and 70%. Damage to heart from heart attack, heart muscle disease, or heart valve problems can contribute to a…

Surgery in Patients with Intracoronary Drug-eluting Stents

For patients with dangerously narrowed or blocked coronary arteries, a medical procedure known as a percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty, commonly referred to as PTCA, is often recommended. This non-surgical procedure involves inserting a catheter with a deflated balloon attached to its tip into the narrowed section of the coronary artery.…

Caloric Restriction: Tantalizing Clues to the Aging Process

Since 1935, when Clive M. McKay at Cornell University noticed that drastically reducing calorie intake slowed the aging process and doubled the lifespan of laboratory rats, scientists have extended the lives of yeast, worms, flies, spiders, mice, rats, cows, and dogs. In fact, according to researcher Charles Mobbs, Professor of Neurology…

Talking Trash With Ana Maria Cuervo, MD, PhD

Taking out the trash is usually not something to get excited about. But for Ana Maria Cuervo, MD, PhD, taking out the trash, the cellular trash that is, couldn’t be more of a thrill. As Dr. Cuervo launches into her explanation of the many intriguing and innovative research…

What Geriatric Training Means to Me: MSTAR Scholar Caitlin Snow

  I am a fourth year medical student at Weill Cornell Medical College pursuing an academic career in geriatric psychiatry. My areas of interest include palliative care, education in geriatrics, and the relationship between older adults and their hired caregivers. The Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) program was…