Professor,Dept of Neurosciences and Behavioral Medicine, University of Santo Tomas, President, Philippine Society of Hypertension 2025-2027

Manila,Philippines
Joined August 2010
Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Berberine lowers LDL cholesterol in randomized trials. I'm interested in how that connects to ApoB, artery plaque, and the gut microbiome. A meta-analysis pooling 14 placebo-controlled trials found an average LDL reduction of approximately 18 mg/dL. Recent randomized-trial evidence also found reductions in ApoB, which estimates the number of circulating particles that can contribute to atherosclerosis. Early clinical evidence also suggests berberine can reduce plaque in the arteries. And at least one of those studies also found a modest reduction in TMAO, a metabolite linked to gut microbial metabolism and implicated in atherosclerosis. One interesting detail from the newer research: ApoB decreased in both men and women, with a larger response in women. In a new placebo-controlled trial in women, berberine lowered ApoB by about 13 mg/dL relative to placebo. Researchers compared those results with an earlier trial in men and found evidence suggesting women had a stronger lipid response. What is interesting is that this may just be a dose-dependent effect. In a separate study, women had almost three times the blood exposure to berberine after the same dose. Together, these findings make berberine a promising compound for cardiovascular health, with potential benefits spanning lipid metabolism, artery health, and the gut microbiome.
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
New in #EJPC: Beyond one-size-fits-all cardiovascular prevention. A new review explores pathway-guided, patient-centered strategies targeting lipids, inflammation, thrombosis, and endothelial dysfunction to address residual risk and personalize treatment. 🔗 ow.ly/G7OB50ZYKf6
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
And here's another meta-analysis yet again showing benefit (mRS 0-2) when giving TPA/TNK in the 4.5-24 hour window based on penumbral imaging. When is this going to become mainstream? Thrombolysis in the Delayed Treatment Window for Acute Ischemic Stroke: Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis | @StrokeAHA_ASA ahajournals.org/doi/abs/10.1…
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I see these situations all the time..patients seeking a second opinion, they are appreciative of my detailed history taking by letting the patient tell me their story and I’ll be more confident in giving them the likely correct diagnosis.
Your doctor cuts you off about 11 seconds after you start talking. Researchers literally timed it in a 2018 study. That number is why Google's new Lancet result is bigger than it looks. In the study, 98 real urgent care patients texted with Google's AI days before their appointment. No scans, no exam, no bloodwork, just an unhurried conversation about what was wrong. That alone put the correct final diagnosis on the AI's list 90% of the time. Sounds like magic until you learn what medicine has known for 50 years. Back in 1975, a British team published a study in the BMJ tracking which part of a visit actually produced the right diagnosis. The physical exam? The labs? Nope. In 82% of cases, the patient's story alone got the doctor there. Everything else mostly confirmed what listening had already found. So the playbook for accurate diagnosis has existed since 1975. Let the patient talk. Medicine just built a system where nobody has time to run it, and an 18-minute appointment with 11 seconds of uninterrupted patient talk was the result. Google didn't build a superhuman doctor. It built the first clinician in 50 years with enough time to use the method we already proved works. And my favorite detail buried in the study... physicians who read the AI's pre-visit summary said it changed how they treated the patient in over half of cases. Hand a doctor the full story before you walk in the room and you get different medicine. Turns out the most advanced medical instrument Google ever shipped is a conversation that doesn't get interrupted.
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Your doctor cuts you off about 11 seconds after you start talking. Researchers literally timed it in a 2018 study. That number is why Google's new Lancet result is bigger than it looks. In the study, 98 real urgent care patients texted with Google's AI days before their appointment. No scans, no exam, no bloodwork, just an unhurried conversation about what was wrong. That alone put the correct final diagnosis on the AI's list 90% of the time. Sounds like magic until you learn what medicine has known for 50 years. Back in 1975, a British team published a study in the BMJ tracking which part of a visit actually produced the right diagnosis. The physical exam? The labs? Nope. In 82% of cases, the patient's story alone got the doctor there. Everything else mostly confirmed what listening had already found. So the playbook for accurate diagnosis has existed since 1975. Let the patient talk. Medicine just built a system where nobody has time to run it, and an 18-minute appointment with 11 seconds of uninterrupted patient talk was the result. Google didn't build a superhuman doctor. It built the first clinician in 50 years with enough time to use the method we already proved works. And my favorite detail buried in the study... physicians who read the AI's pre-visit summary said it changed how they treated the patient in over half of cases. Hand a doctor the full story before you walk in the room and you get different medicine. Turns out the most advanced medical instrument Google ever shipped is a conversation that doesn't get interrupted.
Today @TheLancet published our AMIE study with @BIDMC_Medicine, the first prospective study of patient-facing conversational diagnostics in a real clinic. AMIE is a research system people can chat with before doctors appointments. Testing AMIE outside the lab with real urgent care patients showed how technology can help gather medical histories safely. Clinicians reported that the summaries helped them prepare for visits in 75% of cases and influenced their approach to care in more than half. AMIE’s differential diagnoses also matched the doctors’ final diagnoses 90% of the time giving clinicians more time to focus on patient care. It’s Google’s first-ever paper in The Lancet’s main journal!
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
BREAKING: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.” More to follow.
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
In older adults without cardiovascular disease, treatment with atorvastatin led to a lower risk of major cardiovascular events than placebo at a median of 5.9 years but did not result in longer disability-free survival. Full STAREE trial results and Research Summary: nej.md/4ghHPSC #ESCCongress
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
🧠High-dose, high-intensity rehabilitation (HDHI) after stroke can improve recovery, but uptake remains limited 🤝📑This expert consensus identifies four key barriers and actionable solutions for implementation Read them here!👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful…
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
New Review: Tomás S. Huerta, @KevinJTraceyMD, Isaac M. Chiu & @changsbrain review the organization & function of vagal neuroimmune circuits, from afferent cytokine sensing to organ-specific efferent immune control. hubs.la/Q04ykWBh0 #BioelectronicMedicine #Neuroimmunology
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Original Article: Atorvastatin, Cardiovascular Events, and Disability-free Survival in Older Adults (STAREE trial) nej.md/4ghHPSC Editorial: Statins in Older Adults — Evidence at Last nej.md/4ynHp57 #Cardiology #ESCCongress
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Having a reason to get up in the morning cuts your risk of dying by more than half. A 2019 JAMA study of nearly 7,000 adults found that people with the strongest sense of purpose had the lowest mortality, and the effect was independent of wealth, health, exercise, and depression. Purpose does not mean ambition. It means feeling that your daily actions matter to something beyond yourself. A grandparent raising a garden. A retired teacher who tutors. A caregiver who shows up every morning. The research does not measure achievement. It measures the feeling that what you do connects to something. The biological pathway runs through every system the body uses to stay alive. People with a sense of purpose sleep better, have lower inflammatory markers, take their medications, show up for screenings, and maintain social ties. Each of those individually lowers mortality. Together, they compound into a survival advantage that is larger than the sum of its parts. The opposite is also in the data. People who lose purpose, through retirement without a replacement, the death of a spouse, or the end of a career they defined themselves by, show a rapid decline in health that cannot be explained by aging alone. The body seems to treat purposelessness as a signal that the organism is no longer needed. Nobody writes "sense of purpose" on a prescription pad. The research says it belongs there. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3112…
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
NEW 2026 #ESCGuidelines - Fifth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction (2026) 👇 ow.ly/yn8J50ZGofb #ESCCongress
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
New approaches to Atrial Fibrillation, Dyslipedaemias and Hypertension - Hot Line 8 & 9 👇 More #ESCCongress 2026 Hot Lines visual summaries are available here: ow.ly/me5x50ZGQVh #ESCCongress
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
REACT trial findings presented at #ESCCongress 2026 suggest use of imaging to detect silent atherosclerosis in early adulthood may help improve primary #cvPrev strategies and reduce the substantial burden of atherosclerotic CV disease. Read more: bit.ly/4xCD3Xh
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Digital recruitment and prevalence of screen-detected atrial fibrillation in nationwide patch-based ECG screening: The NORSCREEN randomized clinical trial ow.ly/n65Z50ZELFW #ESCCongress #Europace #EHRA_ESC @GiulioConteMD @EuropaceEiC @majalisalochen1 @dan_atar @sighalvo
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
Presented at #ESCCongress: Among 16,808 adults without known cardiovascular disease, silent atherosclerosis was present in 57.1%, was detectable in early adulthood, and became more prevalent and extensive with age in a sex-dependent pattern. Full REACT trial results: nej.md/46gp1hP @escardio
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Prof Alejandro Bimbo Diaz,MD retweeted
NEW 2026 #ESCGuidelines for the management of cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease, in collaboration with the European Renal Association (ERA) 👇 ow.ly/jI4f50ZGocP #ESCCongress
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