Mar 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
Have you ever noticed you might get more headaches when you change the clocks for daylight saving time? It’s not just a figment of your imagination. It’s real, according to the experts at Mount Sinai.
Fred Cohen, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a headache specialist at the David S. and Ruth L. Gottesman Center for Headache Treatment and Translational Research, says there might be some science to why this is happening. And the key to avoiding headaches is making sure you get enough quality sleep, seven to eight hours, even if you change the clocks.
Fred Cohen, MD
It turns out sleep is one of the most important aspects of headache health.
Sleep allows our brain time to clean itself. There are chemical substances in the brain called neuropeptides and neurotransmitters that transmit messages in your brain that you use during the day. If you don’t sleep well, the brain can’t clean itself properly. The build-up of neuropeptides can cause inflammation, and inflammation leads to headaches.
“So that’s why it’s very important that we have good quality sleep, and that’s just not sleeping too little or sleeping too much,” Dr. Cohen says. Good quality sleep means you are not repeatedly waking up during the night or experiencing problems such as snoring, gasping for air, or going to the bathroom often.
“When daylight savings comes around, whether it’s spring forward or fall back, it’s very important to preserve seven to eight hours of sleep to prevent this from causing headache attacks,” Dr. Cohen says.
However, if you notice you are having frequent headaches, it may be worthwhile to contact a headache specialist.
Feb 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
Mount Sinai Morningside, under the leadership of Sean Pinney, MD, Chief of Cardiology and an expert in heart failure, is eliminating health disparities among the communities most affected by cardiovascular disease and heart failure.
One method is to give patients access to a wide range of clinical trials that employ innovative medications and devices to detect and treat congestive heart failure.
For example, patients can benefit from a groundbreaking device that uses voice recognition to identify congestion. Patients speak into a smartphone from their homes, and special software enables doctors in the hospital to analyze their speech patterns for signs of congestion. The medical team can then act on that data to prevent future heart failure hospitalization.
One area of focus is the treatment of cardiac amyloidosis, a condition in which the body overproduces a protein that causes the heart to stiffen and eventually fail. About six percent of Black people living in New York are carriers of the gene that cause amyloidosis. Sarcoidosis, which causes pulmonary disease, heart disease, and heart arrythmias, is another condition found disproportionately in the Black population. If detected, both these conditions can be treated.
The Mount Sinai Morningside team has made it a priority to identify patients with these conditions in Harlem and Morningside Heights, and all the communities the hospital serves. Clinical trials are underway to diagnose and treat patients with more effective medications.
“These clinical trials represent the next generation of treatment for heart failure and have demonstrated their effectiveness in enabling patients to live fuller and longer lives,” said Dr. Pinney. “The Mount Sinai Morningside team is working hard to build trust for these trials and to demonstrate the potential value to those who can benefit most.”
For hospitalized patients, Mount Sinai Morningside is the lead site for a trial of aquapheresis, a treatment to remove excess fluid from patients who are experiencing a condition called fluid overload because of worsening heart failure.
One example of an innovative device is the AccuCinch® by Ancora Heart, which can be placed inside the heart with a minimally invasive procedure to reduce stress on the walls of the heart, allowing it to beat more efficiently.
The cardiology team also employs a novel ablation procedure to quiet the nerves that prevent the body’s ability to store blood, thereby preventing congestion from developing inside the chest and the lungs.
Hospitalized patients also have access to emerging devices such as a micro axial flow pump that is surgically implanted in the heart, which is used to treat patients with worsening heart failure and resulting kidney failure.
Sep 8, 2023 | Uncategorized
This hearty butternut squash soup recipe is the perfect way to warm up this fall. This plant-based soup is easy to prepare and packed with fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals—essential nutrients that boost the immune system, improve heart health, and reduce your risk for chronic disease. Enjoy!
Ingredients:
2 medium butternut squash
Squash seeds
6 medium carrots
1 medium onion
4 cup water, divided
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon smoked or regular paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon cumin
Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Cut the butternut squash in half. Scoop out the seeds, but save them. Place the squash halves face-down on a baking sheet covered in foil and oiled. Sprinkle the squash seeds on the baking sheet to roast as a garnish for the soup. Set aside.
Peel and chop the carrots into thirds. Chop the onions into a few pieces. Place the carrot and onion pieces alongside the squash on the baking sheet. Bake in oven for 30 minutes. Remove the squash seeds, carrots and onion after about 30 minutes. Set the seeds aside separately, and set aside the carrots and onions. Continue baking the squash for another 30 minutes until the squash is soft enough to scoop from the skin.
Place the squash into a bowl and mash. Discard the shell.
Add half the butternut mash and half of the carrots and onions into a blender and blend on high. Add two cups of water and the pepper, paprika, garlic powder and cumin. Blend until smooth. Pour into a soup pot. Repeat the blending process with the remaining squash, carrots, onion and 2 cups of water. Add to the soup pot, combine blended portions. Stir and heat up before serving. Top with roasted squash seeds for crunch and flavor.
Nutrition
Entire Recipe:
330 calories
Carbohydrates: 40 g
Fat: 8.6 g
Protein: 4.6 g
Butternut squash to me just screams fall, so I am always trying to find the best version of this beloved soup so I can serve it during Thanksgiving. The flavors are a real crowd pleaser, and the roasted seeds make it a party.
Wendy Leon, Mount Sinai Health System, Volunteer
Click here to find more healthy recipes in Mount Sinai’s Calm & Fit Wellness Cookbook.
These recipes from faculty, staff, and students from across the Mount Sinai Health System celebrate the value of healthy eating and how cooking offers an opportunity to create community by bringing people together.
Updated on Dec 14, 2022 | Uncategorized
Mount Sinai Morningside recently installed a new rubidium generator to facilitate a reliable source of isotopes for cardiac positron emission tomography (PET) studies.
With this update, Mount Sinai will become the leading health system in New York City offering high-quality, timely, and easy access to the entire range of advanced cardiac PET imaging. Cardiac PET testing includes three common type of studies: cardiac stress imaging with PET; cardiac PET viability imaging; and cardiac PET infection and inflammation imaging.
Cardiac stress PET myocardial perfusion imaging is the most accurate non-invasive test to diagnose obstructive coronary artery disease as well as coronary microvascular dysfunction, which is a common cause of symptoms and morbidity among patients who have ischemia with non-obstructive coronary arteries (INOCA) with continued symptoms.
Other key advantages of cardiac PET include:
- Significantly lower radiation dose to the patient—approximately 3 mSV, or millisieverts, a unit of radiation exposure, per study, equal to about the amount of radiation a person is exposed to from natural sources over the course of a year.
- Superior imaging technology leading to excellent image quality even among patients with unfavorable bodily characteristics such as obesity or women with large breasts or breast implants.
- Availability of coronary artery calcium score information to detect subclinical atherosclerosis.
- Availability of absolute myocardial blood flow quantitation, which helps to accurately diagnose flow-obstructing CAD including high-risk, multi-vessel CAD, diffuse atherosclerosis, post-heart transplant vasculopathy, and microvascular dysfunction in INOCA.
- Increased efficiency and significantly shorter study time—a rest and stress Rb-82 PET takes about 30 minutes.
Due to these advantages, recent American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines on chest pain evaluation endorse the preferred use of cardiac PET over other stress imaging modalities.
Common indications for cardiac PET stress testing are:
- Symptomatic patients with suspected ischemia unable to exercise or complete exercise during a treadmill test.
- Previous poor quality stress imaging: equivocal or inconclusive results, artifact on images, patients with discordant results on angiogram and stress study.
- Body characteristics affecting image quality: large breasts, obesity, pleural effusions, chest wall deformities.
- High-risk patients to avoid diagnostic errors: patients with history of chronic kidney disease, diabetes, suspected left main or multi-vessel disease, extensive known CAD, suspected transplant vasculopathy, known CAD prior to high-risk revascularization.
- Young patients with established CAD requiring testing to avoid repeat radiation exposure.
- Situations where myocardial flow quantitation is necessary for clinical decision-making, (e.g. microvascular dysfunction and/or suspected multi-vessel disease).
Cardiac PET viability testing is the gold standard for detecting hibernating myocardium among patients with suspected ischemic cardiomyopathy and heart failure with significant CAD. Cardiac PET guided management has been shown to reduce long-term adverse cardiac events among these patients.
Cardiac infection and inflammation PET imaging is critical for the diagnosis and management of patients with suspected or known cardiac sarcoidosis, suspected prosthetic valve endocarditis, left ventricular assist device (LVAD) infections, pocket, and other cardiac device infections.
To refer a patient for a cardiac PET scan, please contact the Cardiology Department at Mount Sinai Morningside 212-636-4809 or send an email to cardiacPet-scan@mountsinai.org.
Click here for more information on the PET CT program at Mount Sinai Morningside.
Oct 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
Katherine Meckel
Can the bacteria in your gut influence addictive behavior? That is the question that Katherine Meckel is studying and trying to answer. Currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Ms. Meckel is one of 31 young scientists from across the country to be honored with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award.
The award will provide Ms. Meckel with a six-year, $447,000 fellowship to fund the remaining two years of her PhD studies, as well as four years of postdoctoral research. The D-SPAN Award recognizes outstanding trainees from historically underrepresented communities in the sciences.
Working in the lab of Drew D. Kiraly, MD, PhD, Ms. Meckel is drawing upon her background in gastroenterology and neuropharmacology to study the effects of the gut microbiome on gene expression and behavior in a rodent model of cocaine use disorder.
“When we look at human patients and also animal models of substance use disorders, we see highly altered gene expression in response to cocaine and other drugs of abuse,” she explains. “This seems to emerge from long-term adaptations or ‘molecular scars’ which affect the ability of gene sequences in the DNA to be accessed and expressed. My work seeks to understand how gut bacteria and the metabolites they produce regulate the structure and accessibility of the DNA, influencing gene expression and ultimately drug-seeking behaviors.”
Dr. Kiraly, her dissertation advisor, praises her tenacity in establishing a new line of research within the field of neuroscience. “Katherine has generated a tremendous amount of exciting data, which provides insight into the mechanisms of gut-brain communication,” says Dr. Kiraly, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Neuroscience, at Icahn Mount Sinai. “Her work holds potential to uncover novel pathways for drug development, which may one day lead to much-needed treatments for patients with substance use disorders.”
Trusting Her Gut Intuition
As an undergraduate, Ms. Meckel pursued a rigorous five-year dual degree program in Voice Performance and Biochemistry at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. There, she conducted neuropharmacology research under Bruce Hetzler, PhD, studying the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on rodent behavior and visual processing.
After graduating, she joined the Section of Gastroenterology at the University of Chicago, working under Joel Pekow, MD, and Marc Bissonnette, MD, to study the effects of diet and metabolism on inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer.
Ms. Meckel credits her time in gastroenterology for encouraging a more integrative physiological approach, which now informs her studies. “Often times in neuroscience, we study the brain in isolation,” she says. “But it’s important to consider that the brain exists in communication with the other peripheral organs throughout the body, and they influence each other’s activity.”
Building Community for Students With Disabilities
Ms. Meckel has also emerged as a leader in disability rights since joining Icahn Mount Sinai. Together with classmates Jessica Pintado Silva and Marisa Goff, she co-founded Disability Rights, Education, and Awareness at Mount Sinai (DREAMS), which provides peer mentoring and support to graduate students with visible and invisible disabilities.
“As a queer, disabled individual, I often compare living with invisible chronic illness to ‘being in the closet.’ If you didn’t know me well, you probably wouldn’t realize I am disabled,” she says. “But much of my life outside of lab is characterized by managing chronic health flares.”
Ms. Meckel expressed gratitude to her advisors and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for supporting her training. “I hope that my experience inspires disabled and chronically ill trainees to continue in the sciences,” she says. “So we can share our unique perspectives and bring new innovation to STEM.”
Oct 8, 2021 | Stories of Excellence, Uncategorized
Lea Tsao, MS, CSRS
The Rehabilitation Department at Mount Sinai West would like to highlight Lea Tsao, MS, CSRS, an occupational therapist who works on our inpatient unit and on the acute medical floors.
When Lea started working with us, she was immediately dedicated to patients, willing to learn, and eager to help. She has a track record for going above and beyond for her patients, giving them not only excellent care but in difficult moments giving heartfelt words of encouragement that could inspire anyone else in the room listening.
Lea has been involved in several challenging cases, but we’d especially like to acknowledge her role in helping a patient who had a complex clinical presentation and a limited support system. Over several months, Lea remained an advocate for his functional progress and for the goal of getting him home. She advocated for interdisciplinary communication, family involvement, and comprehensive care. Her consistency allowed for the continuity of care we strive for as health care providers to best meet the individual needs of our patients.
Without a doubt, this patient also benefitted from the care of numerous physical therapists, including Caitlin Counihan, Victor Rhee, and Erika Chason. Many of them worked to bring the patient’s mobility closer and closer toward functional independence.
We are very lucky to have a team of dedicated therapists and good human beings.
