William H. Bestermann, Jr., MD
Dr. Bestermann leads the Center for Cardiovascular and Diabetes Management at the Holston Medical Group in Kingsport, TN.
ACCORD Trial Shut Down Early: Is Aggressive Glucose Lowering Finished?
Glucose lowering, per se, does not prevent heart attack, stroke, or death. The message to take away from the ACCORD shut-down is that aggressive treatment is a bad idea.
New Technology to Determine Risk of Heart Attack
In my last post, I discussed the untimely death of Wake Forest Basketball coach Skip Prosser and the relationship of vulnerable plaque to sudden...
Sudden Death: When Will We Finally Do What Needs to be Done?
In 1988, Dr. WC Little wrote that bypass surgery and angioplasty could not be expected to prevent heart attack in stable patients. He predicted the results of the landmark COURAGE trial 20 years ahead of time.
Type 2 Diabetes Treatment Made Easy
Most type 2 diabetics have been resistant to the effects of insulin and metabolically abnormal for years prior to developing full-blown diabetes.
If You Want to Get It Up-You Have to Get It Down!
Do you remember the guy on the cigarette commercial—the ruggedly handsome, cool cowboy with the hat and the sheepskin jacket? The message was clear—smoke...
The Cardiometabolic Syndrome is a Complex Metabolic Web
The underpinning for much of the death and disability from arterial vascular disease in this country is the metabolic syndrome. One of the real...
Knowledge is power: how to get the best care for Type 2 diabetes
There is enormous variation in the care delivered to patients with chronic illnesses as documented in numerous documents from authoritative sources including the Institute...
What Medicine Can Learn From the Progress in Military Strategy
Half of health care's $2 trillion dollars is spent on five chronic conditions. Three of those conditions - vascular diabetes, coronary disease and congestive...
The Deadly Delay in the Treatment of Heart Disease
Our system to deal with arterial disease is based on outdated science and our results, outcomes and costs, won't improve until we have the courage to change it.
