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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Aug 20

Was happy to join @boston25news.com 🎥for a discussion of alcohol and heart disease yesterday!

Recent trends show Americans are drinking 🥃🍺 less - what does this mean for the heart? 🫀

www.boston25news.com/news/local/d...

@massgeneralbrigham.bsky.social

Dr. Romit Bhattacharya: Survey shows fewer adults drinking alcohol for health reasons

A new Gallup survey reveals that more Americans are choosing to abstain from alcohol.

www.boston25news.com

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Reposted by Romit Bhattacharya

American Journal of Preventive Cardiology @ajpcardio.bsky.social · Jul 23

🆕 New in AJPC: High-Density Lipoproteins, Part 1

Explore HDL's role in CVD prevention—epidemiology, antiatherogenic effects & therapies to raise serum levels.

🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#HDL #Cardiology #LipidHealth #AJPC #PreventiveCardiology

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Reposted by Romit Bhattacharya

Pradeep Natarajan @pnatarajanmd.bsky.social · Jul 14

An abs risk generalizable risk calculator is challenging. Led by @somijemmacho.bsky.social, evaluating AHA PREVENT across 4 academic health systems, we found similar discrimination but variable calibration. A universal abs risk threshold may not suitably guide www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

Our combined model accounted for just shy of 85% of the risk of incident MI, but factors like diet and exercise underperformed.

We wonder if healthy participant bias, or self report were to blame here?

In a cohort with more lifestyle phenotyping would this improve?

Criticism welcome

Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

Zooming in on the base of the graph yields further insights.

While WHR has a lower R2 - in a society where obesity is increasingly common it accounts for a greater population risk

Dyslipidemia is the opposite - greater R2, but decreasing burden

Lp(a) and hsCRP are comparable!

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

When we looked at population attributable risk, we found that PAR took the number one spot, with HTN at a close second, and comparing both R2 and PAR stand apart

Perhaps HTN is a good integrator of the risk imparted by other risk factors
Perhaps PRS is the primordial risk factor for all others

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

We examined performance in 3 ways: by R2, C-statistic and PAR.

In our R^2 leave-one-out approach, hypertension and a polygenic risk score (GPSmult @aniruddhpatelmd.bsky.social ) that integrated CVD risk factors performed better than all other risk factors.

cc: @somijemmacho.bsky.social

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

In the UKBB and MGBB we build a Clinical and Genetic/Biomarker model of disease.
Traditional risk factors included: HTN, ApoB:ApoA1, T2D, EtOH, WHR, TDI, exercise and Diet
Genetic/Biomarkers Added: PRS, HeFH variants, Lp(a) and hsCRP

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

The statistic that 80-90% of all CVD risk is due to these factors is often cited, but this is at odds with what we see in the clinic.

Many patients struggle more than others to control their risk factors - often due to polygenic risk, monogenic variants, or other risk factors.

We integrated both

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

INTERHEART & the Global Risk Factors Consortium showed that modifiable risk factors account for most risk
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

So then how do genetic risk factors like Polygenic risk, Heterozygous FH variants, and novel biomarkers like Lp(a) [also genetic!] and hsCRP play a role?

Global Effect of Modifiable Risk Factors on Cardiovascular Disease and Mortality | NEJM

Five modifiable risk factors are associated with cardiovascular disease and death from any cause. Studies using individual-level data to evaluate the regional and sex-specific prevalence of the ris...

www.nejm.org

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jul 3

Thrilled that our work on integrating genetic, contemporary and traditional risk factors into acute MI models has been published in
@CirculationGenomeandPrecisionMedicine @ahascience.bsky.social !!

Are genetic and contemporary risk factors as powerful as traditional RFs?

#CardioSky #cvPrev

Pradeep Natarajan @pnatarajanmd.bsky.social · Jul 3

Our study led by @romitb.bsky.social & C. Marnell shows that, when simultaneously considering clinical, laboratory, and genetic risk factors for incident CAD prediction, the top 2 model explanatory factors are:
1. Hypertension
2. CAD polygenic risk score
www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/...

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

#JohnHawley tells us about Exercise Mimetics
- A compound that increased skeletal muscle gene programs, did not have any effect in performance without at least some exercise.
- he frames exercise mimetics more as augmentative therapies than therapies that replace exercise

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

Using a multi-omics approach, changes in mitochondrial associated analytes were found across tissue types (particularly at the transcriptome level)

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

@malenelindholm.bsky.social from Stanford shares about the molecular basis of exercise adaptations!
- Describing the NIH-funded MoTrPAC study
- OMics and the mitochondrial response to exercise
- Sex differences in skeletal muscle responses!

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

& Fascinating results of exercise slowing breast cancer metastases in mice

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

#MarkFebbraio discussing how exercise can protect against the progression of #lifestyle diseases
- Exercise protects against and reverses MASH
- Integrin beta 5 as a key regulator of muscle-liver cross-talk
- Purified EVs from exercising animals and reverse MASH

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

EVs carrying an incredible diversity of proteins in the post-exercise individuals across a number of functional classes - including active kinases in particular AMPK

Transferring exercise EVs from athletic mice to sedentary mice seems to reduce fat mass and markers of fatty liver!

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

#MartinWhithamPhD from Birmingham tells us about techniques to decode exercise-responsive signaling networks, particularly those mediated by extracellular vesicles!

Can EVs from exercising subjects confer benefits to sedentary individuals?

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

While weight loss alone does not correct both of these deficits, but weight loss WITH exercise improves both!

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

Lean subjects utilize fatty acid metabolism during a fast and quickly switch to carbohydrate metabolism with insulin.

Whereas, insulin-resistant pts were inefficient oxidizers of fatty acids during fasting, and were less efficient in switching to carbohydrate metabolism when exposed to insulin.

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

#BretGoodPasterPhD speaks to us about intramyocellular lipids and insulin resistance and a VERY fascinating concept of metabolic flexibility:

Intermuscular adipose tissue on CT, vs intromyocellular lipids on biopsy

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

#MichaelSnyder from #StanfordGenetics gives the Blackburn Keynote and covers:
- Ageotypes (people age in different patterns, in different organs)
- 2 major aging timepoints at age 44 and 60
- The post-exercise compound Lac-Phe regulate appetite and obesity
- Using Wearables for lifestyle monitoring

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

To learn more visit our Harvard NORCH website:

dev.norch.org

dev.norch.org/2025-muscle-...

Nutrition Obesity Research Center at Harvard | Promoting and Enhancing Nutrition Research Within the Greater Boston Community

dev.norch.org

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Romit Bhattacharya @romitb.bsky.social · Jun 4

Huge thank you to Dr. Steve Grinspoon for inviting me to moderate the Harvard Nutrition Obesity Research Symposium at MGH!

Watch this space for insights and work from our faculty!

#CardioSky #EndoSky @mghcvrc.bsky.social @jsawallagusehmd.bsky.social @drprao.bsky.social @pnatarajanmd.bsky.social

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