Niki E Kantrowitz M.D.

What is CHD?Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the disease that develops when there is an insufficient oxygen supply to the heart muscle by the coronary arteries. The most common reason for this is atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries with cholesterol plaques formation and narrowing of the arterial...

Our heart rate is automatically controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that has two divisions: sympathetic and parasympathetic. The part of the ANS that is responsible for raising a person’s heart rate through the sympathetic plexus is the sympathetic division. The parasympathetic...

Experts are of the opinion that phytosterols improve the body’s ability to lower cholesterol levels. Like other cholesterol-lowering foods, including salmon and oats, phytosterols are supposed to lower the levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol, LDL. Phytosterols, or plant sterols and stanol esters, are...

What is atherosclerosis?Atherosclerosis is also known as arteriosclerotic vascular disease or ASVD. It is a particular type of arteriosclerosis in which an artery wall gets thickened as an effect of attack and accumulation of white blood cells and rupture of the intimal smooth muscle cell producing...

Cardiac ablation is a procedure used for atrial fibrillation (a-fib) treatment, which is an irregular beating of the heart. Doctors may recommend the procedure when other methods of treatment such as drugs and heartbeat reset aren’t successful.If atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heart rate,...

Congestive heart failure does not indicate that your heart has stopped working; instead what it indicates is that your heart is pumping blood at a slower rate than normal.  Because the blood moves through the heart and the body at a much slower rate, the pressure in the heart builds up. Hence, the...