The Naked Heart

The Handgrip That Predicts Your Patient's Cardiac Future

Grip strength measurement reveals cardiovascular risk more accurately than traditional markers by reflecting muscle function as endocrine organ. Declining strength drives coronary disease through inflammatory pathways. Progressive resistance training provides powerful cardiovascular protection.

When Your Blood Can’t Breathe: Iron, Anaemia, and the Breathless Heart

When a patient arrives breathless and unable to climb a hill, the instinct is to blame the heart. Sometimes the answer lies in the blood itself. Iron deficiency anaemia reduces oxygen delivery, forces the heart into a hyperdynamic state, and can even produce a murmur over a completely normal valve. Read blog [https://www.scvc.co.uk/vat/iron-deficiency-breathless-heart/]

The Heart: The Ultimate Fuel Omnivore

What if the heart works like a hybrid engine? Continuously switching between fatty acids, glucose, and ketones, it optimises fuel use for efficiency and demand. But in metabolic disease, this flexibility is lost. The result: poorer fuel, narrowed supply lines, and a strained engine — a new way to understand cardiovascular risk. Read the full blog [https://www.scvc.co.uk/vat/naked-heart/hybrid/] Naked Heart Podcast series [https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-naked-heart]

Could Reducing Belly Fat Improve Erectile Function?

This N-of-1 article explores a simple hypothesis: erectile dysfunction in many men may reflect reversible metabolic disruption driven by visceral fat rather than fixed arterial disease. By tracking waist reduction and symptoms over time, individuals can test whether improving metabolic health restores endothelial function, drug response, and erectile reliability. Read blog [https://www.scvc.co.uk/vat/naked-heart/belly-fat-erectile-function/] https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-naked-heart [https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-naked-heart]

Can we use AI to predict cardiovascular death?

Groundbreaking research from Oxford University reveals it is possible to detect and quantify ‘coronary inflammation’ – invisible to the human eye on conventional CT images, but detectable using artificial intelligence techniques. Read story [https://www.scvc.co.uk/vat/naked-heart/ai-predict-cardiovascular-death/]