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Providing independent clinical excellence since 2005

The SCVC Blog

Cardiovascular care news and articles from our expert team

Troponin-Negative Chest Pain: A Dangerous Illusion

Troponin-negative presentations are often sent home without a timely work up or prompt imaging tests like a CT angiogram.  A delay can be critical. Until these services become widely available, and in good time, patients experiencing unexplained chest symptoms who have not had clinical follow up and diagnosis confirmed are advised to 'vote with their feet'- either head back into hospital in event of further symptoms, or even consider arranging to fund their own urgent CT angiogram from an independent medical provider.

The 8-Month Metabolic Reset: A New Approach to Reversing Visceral Fat, Improving Blood Pressure and Blood Glucose

Thanks to digital health technology, many of the tools needed to correct low protein intake are now in the hands of patients. Food tracking apps can analyse the macronutrient breakdown of meals, allowing users to make informed adjustments. AI-based platforms can even suggest personalised meal plans that hit protein targets while remaining aligned with caloric needs and dietary preferences.

How does stress affect your heart?

Stress is an unavoidable part of modern life. We encounter it at work, at home, in traffic, and even while reading the news. Although we often discuss stress casually, its impact on the human body is profound—particularly on the cardiovascular system. In this article, we will explore how stress affects the heart and blood vessels, drawing on clinical insights, expanding scientific knowledge, and practical stress-management strategies. By the end, you will see why stress is a critical factor in any heart health strategy, along with steps you can take to mitigate its harmful effects.

LAD-Stenosis

Is coronary artery calcification good or bad?

Recognition that significant coronary artery disease exists without calcification led to the wider user of contrast-enhanced CT scans to detect both calcified and noncalcified plaques. Even more advanced scans identify not only the non calcified plaques, but also areas of inflammation (using data processing to measure FAI), that a non-contrast CT (such as a CAC scan) would otherwise miss. Sequential CAC to follow up disease progression quickly established that an increase in CAC with age was inevitable in most patients and not linked to clinical course, so is not widely practiced.

Metabolic Health Assessment

Is is increasingly obvious that not everyone with raised coronary inflammation and elevated risk of heart attack simply has a raised LDL Cholesterol- in fact there appears to be a mixed bag of risk factors associated with high coronary artery inflammation, including raised LDL, raised LP (a), raised Homocysteine, hypertension and dysregulated glucose.   Our metabolic health assessment is therefore designed to offer a comprehensive dive into known contributory causes, the latest and most controversial of which is 'glucose dysregulation', the principle topic of this article.