The American Journal of Medicine Blog

No topic has been more hotly debated over recent decades than the role of various foods in the development of atherosclerosis. The earliest animal experiments demonstrated that diets rich in fat and cholesterol produced arterial lesions that resembled atherosclerosis in humans.1 Over subsequent decades, a great deal of animal and human research has been performed exploring […]

A recent New England Journal of Medicine letter gained national attention by describing an emergency room visit by a patient with a tattoo on his chest, “Do Not Resuscitate.” The article told how the emergency room physicians, who had not encountered this issue before, contacted their medical ethics specialists to make sure they were complying with their […]

My father was a busy and successful dentist in New Haven, Connecticut. One of my earliest memories is of sitting in one of his dental chairs and having my teeth inspected and cleaned. Many years later when I was about to start medical school, my father told me that in his practice, patients with poor […]

Targeted temperature management — lowering a person’s body temperature– has been recommended as an integrated part of postresuscitation care after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, but is it safe? In this video, Dr. Joseph S. Alpert, AJM editor-in-chief, talks about new research on temperature management. Read the research: The Extent of Myocardial Injury During Prolonged Targeted Temperature […]

  Sudden deaths in young, seemingly healthy competitive athletes are tragic events, often with wide media coverage and high public visibility. There is substantial interest in establishing the cause of these deaths and the roles that race and gender may play. In a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine, investigators report that […]