Diet Pills and Methamphetamines Stimulants were first suspected of causing pulmonary hypertension in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.  In Austria a diet pilled called Aminorex was marketed in the late 1960’s and shortly thereafter an epidemic of pulmonary arterial hypertension developed among users.  The pill was withdrawn in the early 1970’s and the wave of Aminorex … [Read more...]

What Do They Mean? Mild PAH? We receive many emails from our readers inquiring whether having borderline to minimally elevated echo estimated pulmonary artery pressures means that they have pulmonary arterial hypertension.  This is a very important question and many doctors unfortunately don’t understand the limits of echocardiography so patients are often left more … [Read more...]

Disease Overview HHT is a rare disease that leads to abnormal blood vessel growth throughout the body.  This commonly leads to frequent nose bleeds (epistaxis), gastro-intestinal bleeding and anemia.  The more serious manifestations include abnormal blood vessels in the lungs, brain and liver.  These abnormal blood vessels can lead to infections in the brain, bleeding in the … [Read more...]

The most common disease confused with pulmonary arterial hypertension is diastolic heart failure (also called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction-HeFPEF).  In my practice about 70% of patients referred to me for PAH actually have diastolic heart failure. Let’s review basic heart function.  The heart has two main actions—squeezing and relaxing.  The squeezing phase … [Read more...]

What is Sickle Cell Disease? Sickle Cell Disease is a genetic disorder of the red blood cells. It is autosomal recessive (you need to get one defective gene copy from each of your parents). Patients with sickle cell disease have abnormal hemoglobin in their red cells. Under periods of stress the red cells become deformed and plug up the blood vessels of the lungs and other … [Read more...]