Katerina's Kitchen: Greek Egg Salad
This delicious and healthy meal option is one of our family favorites, and it’s become a popular dish with our friends, too! With good protein and healthy fats, this meal is easy to make and inexpensive.
You will need:
2-3 hardboiled eggs, peeled and sliced
Olive Oil
Fresh squeezed lemon juice (About 1/2 lemon)
Feta Cheese (pre-crumbled or a fresh block)
Oregano
Thyme
Salt + Pepper
Instructions:
In a bowl, combine about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and the juice from about 1/2 lemon — this creates the “dressing” for your eggs. Mix well and taste to make sure the balance is to your liking. Too tart from the lemon? Add a bit more oil. Too bland? Add a squeeze more of juice. A light coating for the eggs is more than enough!
Next, add your sliced hard boiled eggs. You can also add in the seasonings to your liking — we prefer oregano, thyme and a dash of salt and pepper. You don’t need to use too much salt, since we’re using feta cheese. Sprinkle in the cheese to your liking, as well, using either pre-crumbled feta or breaking pieces off of a fresh block.
Give the salad a light toss to coat with the dressing.
This is a great option for those following a ketogenic diet!
To add in some carbohydrates, this dish is delicious with a piece of whole wheat bread (my favorite way is to toast it!)
Easy, simple, delicious and healthy!
Kali orexi!
Prevention of Pre-Diabetes
It’s always nice to see people in the medical community backing your beliefs. I found this quote recently by Dr. Michael Valentine, the President of American College of Cardiology (2018-2019) that said “While we are constantly finding innovative ways to treat existing heart disease, we must continue to focus our efforts on preventing heart disease. It will require efforts from more than just the medical community, but from communities and government as well.”
In this blog, we’ll be covering pre-diabetes, obesity and how to prevent both of these things from occurring in the first place. Many people have heard about diabetes, but what most people don’t know is how the sequence happens from pre-diabetes to full-on diabetes and the process that the body goes through during this time.
High blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity all go hand-in-hand.
When you have a meal that is rich in carbs, where do those carbs go? They are absorbed into the bloodstream and go knocking on the door of our working cells in our liver, muscles, and other arteries to tell them that blood sugar is available. The cells listen and use this to go about their routine and create the energy that we use daily. However, as blood sugar continues you to come around and tell us that blood sugar is available, not all doors open. Now, the pancreas already secretes insulin into our bodies, and when that blood sugar comes knocking, they say - “Knock louder, I can’t hear you.” The blood sugar or insulin must be louder and work harder to get through those doors, hence the creation of insulin becomes higher. Insulin continues to come back with more and more insulin in order to open those doors, but after it accumulates such high levels over and over, it eventually says, “What do you expect of me? I can’t keep up with these levels anymore” Hence insulin resistance starts its journey.
The main reason this occurs is when our bodies are not getting the proper treatment tactics - a healthy diet, exercise, and of course, too many carbohydrates. As we know, everything is okay in moderation, but when your body starts to become unresponsive, it’s because of unwanted belly fat and lack of care for our bodies. Our bodies try to help us maintain healthy weights, even from the inside, hence the resistance to insulin production trying to help keep us healthy and fit. For people that have diabetes and other health-related issues, this fight can be challenging. Your blood test will be where you see the difference in your body.
Your number should look something like this:
Pre-Diabetes: between 100-126
Diabetes: 126 or higher
1 out of 3 people in the United States test positive for pre-diabetes, and had no idea that they were even in a categorical place for pre-diabetes or diabetes in general. This is where we wrap everything back to our previous lessons: stay on top of your health and make your primary care physician your best friend. Get your checkups, monitor your own health at home, and do the things that you know are good for your bodies in the long run. Your physicians will tell you how to take care of your bodies before diabetes can kick in, or how to prevent your body from getting to a diabetic level.
To your health,
Dr. Anthony
Katerina's Kitchen: Chicken Thighs with Basil
This delicious and healthy recipe is so easy to make! Enjoy it with a side of sautéed fresh spinach or your favorite veggies and a glass of your favorite wine!
Ingredients
Four chicken thighs bone on, organic or antibiotic free
Four peeled large fresh tomatoes (any kind), in large chunks
6 garlic cloves- peeled and sliced
Bunch of fresh basil
Fresh oregano — 1/2 tsp
Fresh thyme — 1/2 tsp
Fresh rosemary — 1/2 tsp
Turmeric — 1/2 tsp
1/2 cup virgin olive oil
Black pepper
Two tablespoons butter (optional)
Instruction
In a heavy saucepan, bring to medium high heat and add oil. Sautee garlic cloves and chicken, turning chicken on both sides, till light golden brown. Add tomatoes, chopped basil and 3/4 cup water, cover and let simmer for 10-15 minutes (or until chicken is cooked through). Uncover and continue cooking till juices evaporate to the level you want. Add butter, sliced in small pieces (optional). Sprinkle a pinch of turmeric and some pepper. Add sprigs of fresh herbs and turn the heat off. Serve this by itself, with sauteed spinach or even your favorite veggies!
Enjoy! (Kali orexi!)
From my kitchen to yours!
Katerina
An Overview of the EKG
The Electrocardiogram (EKG) has been an immensely useful and practical tool in cardiology for over 120 years. Its longevity is amazing if one considers how quickly new technological advances make older tests completely obsolete.
EKG Machines show the heart’s electrical activity, printing the “spikes” on paper for the doctor to read.
EKG provides a snapshot of the heart's electrical activity. Human heart is an amazing high-tech organ that does a lot more than simply pumping blood through our arteries. The heart cells that do this heavy-labor, mechanical work will not function unless there is an electricity current flowing through them. The part of the heart that creates electricity (out of nothing!) is called the sinus node and is located in one of the upper chambers of the heart (the right atrium). It then spreads to the rest of the heart, including the bottom chambers (the ventricles) where the “heavy lifting” and pumping of our heart occurs. In case the sinus node cannot function properly, other heart cells can take over the electrical production, although not quite as efficiently as the sinus node can. If none of the heart cells can create the needed electrical beat then a pacemaker may become necessary.
The EKG reveals the electrical activity in the heart, but why is this so important? What can the heart's electrical activity tell us about our health? It can first tell us whether the heart rhythm is normal or abnormal: is the rhythm too fast? Too slow? Are there any extra or skipped beats or is the rhythm completely erratic, like in atrial fibrillation? Beyond information about the heart’s rhythm, the EKG allows us to diagnose previous heart attacks or, indirectly, severely clogged heart arteries. If a large part of the heart has been damaged by a previous heart attack that part is electrically silent and shows up on the EKG. The pattern of the heart's electricity also changes in hearts that, because of clogged arteries, receive less oxygen. This is how the stress test (also referred to as a treadmill test) can help diagnose heart disease: by recording the EKG of a patient who walks briskly on a treadmill for a few minutes while attached to an EKG monitor, the EKG pattern reveals any serious oxygen shortage to a large part of the heart. Consider that at a normal, resting heart rate, an 80-90% blockage in the arteries is usually not obvious on the EKG as the demand of the resting heart for oxygen is so low that a 10-20% opening of the artery is plenty to allow things to proceed normally. However, if we stress the heart and ask it to do more, such a blockage prevents the heart from meeting the increased oxygen demand and this problem usually becomes obvious on the stress EKG.
EKG also gives useful clues when the chambers of the heart (atria or ventricles) become enlarged, thick or weak. And while the EKG may not be a very precise test and can’t give us an answer for everything, it can tell us that something is wrong and point towards the need for more detailed testing. Frequently an abnormal EKG becomes the indication for more specialized heart testing like ultrasound of the heart, nuclear cardiology, CT or MRI of the heart or even invasive direct visualization of the heart and its arteries. As the mechanical behavior of the heart changes when heart disease occurs, so does its electrical behavior. In this way we get early clues from the inexpensive, quick, practical EKG and doctors make a decision whether more expensive, complex and riskier tests are necessary. EKG has stood the test of time: invented in the early 20th century has made it well into the 21st century. It's easy to perform, it requires no needles, no pain, and no radiation -- making it very useful for patients and doctors alike.
All About AFIB (Atrial Fibrillation)
Our heart pushes about 2-3 ounces of oxygen-rich blood to our entire body with every pulse. It is an extremely complex organ but here we will try to view it as simply as possible. So, think of the heart as a two-story townhouse with two rooms on the upper floor (left and right atria) and two rooms on the lower (left and right ventricles). You might have noticed that I start with the left side (atrium or ventricle) and then mention the right. This is because the left side is the prominent and most important one: it is the part of the heart that has the tough job of sending blood from the heart to the most distant parts and cells of our body, while the right has a much easier job, merely sending blood to the nearby lungs.
The heart is an amazing and complex organ, working hard to keep us alive, even as we sleep.
So, as far as the heart is concerned, the left part is the important one. It’s the main pump of the heart, doing 90% of the work. When someone has a heart attack, for example, it’s the left side of the heart that suffers. The left side of the heart consists of the mechanically weaker left atrium (that simply receives and accommodates the incoming oxygen-rich blood from the lungs) and the much stronger left ventricle. The muscular and strong left ventricle forcefully contracts with each heartbeat and sends its oxygen-rich blood all over our body!
The left atrium, as compared to the left ventricle, has thin walls and little muscle but has a very important role in how the heart creates and conducts electricity. Electricity in the heart goes hand in hand with a mechanical squeeze and no electricity means no pumping: without the electrical activation in the heart, the ventricle cannot squeeze and pump blood. In instances when the electricity in the heart is slow, a pacemaker may become necessary to support the failing electrical function of the heart; as we mentioned above “no electricity means no pumping”.
In AFIB (Atrial Fibrillation), something different happens. It’s not that the electrical current is low or nonexistent. It is actually the opposite -- there is too much too frequent electricity that tries to activate the heart 500 times per minute. The upper chambers (atria) start quivering at 300, 400, 500 times a minute. That’s too fast and counterproductive! The good news is that the heart has a gatekeeper, called the AV node, that will not allow this crazy fast heart rhythm to come to the ventricles -- there is no way that the ventricles could squeeze that rapidly and be filled with incoming blood from the lugs in between. When you force a heart to contract that rapidly, you take away its capacity to function, as it cannot fill with blood properly in between its contractions. It takes about half a second of quietness and relaxation for the heart to adequately fill with blood. So, forcing the heart to beat 500 times a minute gives it no opportunity to relax in between, no opportunity to adequately fill with blood and no opportunity to squeeze enough blood to the rest of the body when it contracts. In atrial fibrillation the ventricles are not allowed to fill to optimal capacity and their efficiency is reduced by about 30-40%.
But there is an even worse problem with AFIB and this is its potential to cause a stroke. How does AFIB cause a stroke? In the atria, that rapid quivering causes the heart to beat irregularly and flimsy as there is no organized contraction. The blood in the atria, instead of being placed in regular motion, quivers, and moves slowly. When blood isn’t set in regular motion, it thinks that we are bleeding and forms a clot to stop this “bleeding”. But this clot, instead of plugging an artery hole it moves around in the blood circulation and may end up in the brain and within three minutes... we have a stroke. It takes a clot as small as 1 mm to cause this problem.
Having AFIB increases our risk for stroke by 5 times, which is dangerous if we are older since the risk of stroke also increases with age. (This is why it’s common for doctors to prescribe their patients who are 60-65 years or older with blood thinners if they are eligible.) Strokes are the 5th leading cause of death in the US.
What causes AFIB? Aging is a prime factor. With age, there is a lot of wear and tear in our cardiovascular system and scar tissue or fat sets around the normal atrial cells, altering their electrical behavior and causing atrial fibrillation. Other factors that cause AFIB include high blood pressure, mitral valve disease, obesity, too much alcohol, even hyperactive thyroid -- anything that increases the tone of the sympathetic system (think: adrenaline). We can even see AFIB in younger men during the heavy consumption of alcohol! Other occasions when AFIB can occur include obstructive sleep apnea, pneumonia or after open-heart surgery.
AFIB is becoming more and more common in our population. One in ten individuals above the age of 65 have AFIB, so it’s extremely important that we do what we can to prevent it (who would like to take blood thinners for the rest of their life?) and take care of our health assets in the best way possible.
To your health,
Dr. Anthony