ManMod

[Afshine Emrani MD FACC @afshineemrani]

I'm a cardiologist. If I could only recommend two supplements for the rest of my career, it would be these:

Magnesium glycinate.
Vitamin D3 with K2.

I take both every day. I prescribe both constantly. And the number of patients whose lives visibly change within weeks of starting them still surprises me after twenty years.
Up to 75% of Americans are low in magnesium. Most have no idea. If you're stressed, sleeping poorly, cramping at night, your blood pressure runs high, or you feel wired but exhausted — this is probably why.

Magnesium calms the nervous system, relaxes blood vessels, supports healthy heart rhythms, and improves sleep quality. The glycinate form is highly absorbable and gentle on the stomach. 300-400mg before bed. It's the supplement patients thank me for most — because they finally wake up feeling calm instead of wrecked.
Most Americans are also deficient in vitamin D. Low D3 quietly ruins your mood, weakens your immunity, increases inflammation, and raises cardiovascular risk. I see suboptimal levels constantly in my heart patients. Target blood levels of 50-80 ng/mL — not the bare minimum of 30 most doctors accept.

Here's what almost nobody knows: low D3 actively depletes magnesium. Your body uses magnesium to convert D3 into its active form. If you supplement D3 without magnesium, you can actually worsen a magnesium deficiency — and wonder why you still feel terrible.
You need both. They work as a system.

And always take D3 with K2. Without K2, calcium from D3 can deposit in your arteries instead of your bones. Together, they keep bones dense and arteries clean.
D3 with K2 in the morning with a meal containing fat — they're fat-soluble.
Magnesium glycinate at night before bed.

Cheap. Available everywhere. Backed by extensive evidence. And the combination addresses two of the most common deficiencies driving the fatigue, poor sleep, anxiety, muscle cramps, and low mood that millions of people are medicating with far more expensive and dangerous interventions.

Your future self will thank you. Probably within two weeks.

[Afshine Emrani MD FACC @afshineemrani]

I'm a cardiologist. After 40, stop guessing about your health. These numbers tell you whether you're building a long, vibrant life — or quietly declining without knowing it.

I run these on myself. I run them on every patient I care about. Most are cheap bloodwork. All are available now. And together, they paint a picture no standard annual physical will ever give you. Print this. Bring it to your next appointment. Your 60-year-old self will thank you.
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𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘂𝗹𝗶𝗻
Target: below 5 μIU/mL. Ideal: 3-4.
This is the 10-year warning bell your standard panel completely misses. Your glucose and A1c can look "normal" for a decade while your pancreas is working overtime to keep them there. Fasting insulin catches insulin resistance 5-10 years before your A1c moves. By the time A1c rises, the damage is already extensive.

𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗔-𝗜𝗥
Target: below 1.0.
Calculated from fasting insulin and fasting glucose. The single best measure of insulin sensitivity. Above 1.0 and your metabolism is already under strain. Above 2.5 and you're insulin resistant — even if every other number looks fine.

𝗛𝗯𝗔𝟭𝗰
Target: below 5.4%.
Not below 5.7% — that's the threshold where medicine calls you "prediabetic." By then you've been metabolically compromised for years. Optimal is below 5.4%. Blood sugar mastery is longevity mastery.

𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗹𝘆𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲 : 𝗛𝗗𝗟 𝗥𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼
Target: below 2. Ideal: below 1.
Your metabolic health crystal ball. This ratio predicts insulin resistance, cardiovascular risk, and metabolic syndrome better than any single lipid number alone. A ratio above 3.5 is a red flag regardless of what your total cholesterol says.

𝗔𝗽𝗼𝗕
Target: below 80 mg/dL for moderate risk. Below 60 for high risk.
I've written about this extensively. ApoB counts every atherogenic particle hitting your artery walls. A 2024 analysis found 54% of patients had dangerous levels that standard LDL testing completely missed. If you only know your LDL, you're driving with one eye closed.

𝗟𝗽(𝗮)
Test once in your lifetime.
100% genetic. 1 in 5 Americans are elevated. Triples heart attack risk independently of everything else on this list. Diet and exercise cannot lower it. The 2026 ACC/AHA guidelines now recommend everyone be tested. Most never have been.

𝗵𝘀-𝗖𝗥𝗣
Target: below 1.0 mg/L.
You can have perfect cholesterol and inflamed arteries silently preparing to rupture. hs-CRP measures the fire behind the plaque. The JUPITER trial proved that finding and treating inflammation saves lives — even when lipids look fine. If this number is elevated, your mouth, your gut, your metabolic health, and your visceral fat are the first places to investigate.

𝗩𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗻 𝗗
Target: 50-80 ng/mL.
Not the bare minimum of 30 your doctor accepts. Suboptimal vitamin D is linked to higher inflammation, weaker immunity, increased cardiovascular events, worse mood, and poorer outcomes across nearly every disease I treat. Supplement D3 with K2 — without K2, calcium deposits in your arteries instead of your bones.

𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲 (𝗧𝗼𝘁𝗮𝗹 + 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲)
Men: optimal range 600-1000+ ng/dL total.
Declining testosterone is an independent predictor of cardiovascular death in men. It's tied to insulin resistance, arterial stiffness, visceral fat accumulation, and systemic inflammation. DHEA-S drops 10-20% every decade after 30. Tracking these isn't about vanity — it's evaluating your body's systemic resilience.

𝗕𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲
Target: below 120/80. Aim closer to 110/70.
Every point above optimal is cumulative arterial damage. Buy a home cuff. Measure morning and evening, seated quietly for five minutes, arm at heart level. White-coat readings in the office miss what's really happening. The smartest $40 investment in cardiac self-care.

𝗩𝗢𝟮 𝗠𝗮𝘅
Men over 40: above 40 mL/kg/min. Women over 40: above 35.
Cardiorespiratory fitness is the single strongest predictor of all-cause mortality — stronger than smoking, diabetes, or heart disease as individual risk factors. A landmark study in JAMA found that extreme fitness was associated with the lowest mortality with no upper limit of benefit. You can estimate VO2 max with a timed mile, a rower test, or a wearable. Get faster every year.

𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀
Target: as few as possible.
Every medication you're on should be earning its place. I just wrote about five commonly prescribed drugs that do more harm than good with long-term use. Bring your full medication list to every appointment. Ask: "Do I still need this?" Deprescribing is one of the most powerful and underused tools in medicine.
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Thirteen numbers. Most available through cheap bloodwork and simple tests. Get them once or twice a year. Here's what I want you to understand: these numbers don't just tell you where you are. They tell you where you're heading. A fasting insulin of 8 today becomes diabetes in five years. An ApoB of 120 today becomes a heart attack in ten. An hs-CRP of 3 today means your arteries are inflamed right now — regardless of how healthy you feel. The standard annual physical checks a fraction of these. It was designed to find disease that's already there. This panel finds the disease that's coming — years before it arrives.

What gets measured gets improved. Optimize with the foundation I write about every week on this platform:
Zone 2 cardio plus resistance training 3-4 times per week. High-protein whole-food nutrition. Sleep 7-9 hours — non-negotiable. Morning sunlight. Stress management. And the targeted supplements I've covered in detail — creatine, magnesium, CoQ10, D3+K2, glycine, omega-3, psyllium husk.
The breakthroughs coming in the next decade — gene editing for cholesterol, cellular reprogramming, senolytics that clear senescent "zombie" cells driving inflammation and aging, GLP-1 drugs rewriting metabolic medicine — will be most powerful for people who've already built the metabolic foundation to receive them.

The future of medicine is personalized. But it starts with knowing your numbers today. Print this list. Book the bloodwork. Own the data. Prevention isn't passive. It's the most aggressive thing you can do for the decades ahead.

[Narendra Modi @narendramodi]

भारत के विकास के इस अहम कालखंड में कुतर्क करने वालों से इसलिए सतर्क रहना बहुत जरूरी है…

#RepublicSummit2026

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

@sagarikaghose @narendramodi Any objective, non-agendic person would read this as an article that did not age well. Now at least there is a record of what was predicted and compared to the reality.

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

Nice Summary

[Saimukundhan G @gsaimukundhan]

Ma'am. You are right in pointing out that I shouldn't swallow mainstream media and their disinformation. Stopped taking them seriously since 2004.

Pretty presumptuous to assume that I don't do serious reading. I'll try and address all the points you've highlighted.
1. Demonetisation - Forget the filmy version and terror linkage angle (which people in the army in J&K will confirm to be true). As someone in active CA practice, and who has handled bunch of cases involving demonetisation, I can say with confidence and experiential knowledge that it did give a death blow to people who were hoarding cash. Please do ask around your CA circles, they'd concur that bulk cash deposits by businessmen, which remained unexplained after several opportunities, were all taxed at 75%! I am angry at the Government for giving the leeway of Rs.2.5L deposit without questioning. It shouldn't have been done.
2. "Faulty" GST - This has been paraded multiple times without any actual evidence. GST has been one of the biggest tax pivot India has ever seen. The extent of revenue leakage that has been plugged is something people aren't informed of at all. One of the most seamless tax experiences business have ever seen. Just FYI, it replaced not just one tax, it replaces almost 6 to 8 taxes across Centre and State (Central Excise, Service Tax, Central Sales Tax, State Level VAT, Entertainment Tax, Entry Tax etc.). Again, if you had endured all these multiple compliances and assessments prior to 2017, you'd truly appreciate what GST has ensured. Evaders are the only cribbers.
3. Abrupt Lockdown - I assume you refer to Covid lockdown. Every country went through this. I think India was the only country which did a dip test with a one day lockdown. Only negative about lockdown? We had some of the dumbest rulings about penalizing people not wearing masks inside car. Economy did take a hit. But then, the GOI ensured that it will pump in serious funding towards Capex (Approx. 100L Crores, IIRC) over a 5 year period starting from Covid. My own office did suffer serious losses during Covid. So did others.

Despite this, India remained the fastest growing major economy. On to your observation on FII pulling out their money, lower employment, and collapse of private investment - I have to say, you are terribly misinformed.

FDI continues to grow. This is the capital that flows in towards capital formation and asset formation. What is going out now is repatriation of previous investments i.e. secondary market flows. Any investor would like to cash his profit at some stage, right? Hyundai and LG are the biggest examples. They took out their money because they had seen their investment grow multiple times.

On to private capital, I agree with you. It is lagging behind Public Capital Formation. Government is still doing the heavy lifting, and Private players are only catching up. It will normalize soon.

People migrating out of the country for jobs is pretty normal. Not every one is moving out for good. Few are, and that was always the case. On the employment angle, the participation of female employment has risen. I would like a much better employment rate, it hasn't been dreary as being pointed out.

As to CAG's report, it only highlights implementation gaps, and not "massive corruption" or "collapse of digitisation". It will be addressed.

And finally, the social disharmony is just political rhetoric. When appeasement and special privilege stops, the sane view it as social levelling, and the politically motivated ones will view it as "step towards marginalisation and disharmony".

[Erik Solheim @ErikSolheim]

Why is the West not curious on the great Indian 🇮🇳 civilization?

This week Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Norway. The government rolled out the red carpet. King Harald invited for lunch. All bigwigs of Norwegian business turned up. This is of course as it should be at such a historic visit.

Rather different was media. No curiosity, no real attempt to understand India. When the third most powerful man in the world visits Norway, you may expect some real interest? An attempt to understand the world’s third largest economy, a global green leader, one of the world’s brightest civilizations??

It’s not that Norway is overrun with visit at this level. Last Indian top visit was Indira Gandhi in 1983. Last Chinese president visit was 1996, last American president was 2009.

Here are some taste bits from Norwegian media:

* Aftenposten the largest newspaper printed a caricature of Modi as a snake charmer, many found it racist and derogatory. The accompanying article (written by an otherwise brilliant journalist) described Modi as a “slightly annoying man” and simply showcased that India is not high on the papers reading lists.

* Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK), the state broadcaster, explained “why prime minister Støre is clearing his desk to receive Modi”. From everyone outside Norway I got exactly the opposite question: Why did Modi use his valuable time in such a small and insignificant place?

* Dagsavisen, a left of center daily, sent a young journalist to throw questions after Modi - claiming that India is 157 on a global democracy ranking. When a ranking is so contrary to common sense - why doesnt she ask those who created the ranking why they spread such nonsense?

I am not aware of one Norwegian journalist closely following India. NOT ONE! How can the public learn more?

Unless you believe democracy only fits a handful of small, homogenous, ultra rich western nations, India is the miracle of democracy. The large, complex, lingustically and religiously diverse nation with many poor people - which has etablished a vibrant democracy and is much less violent than Europe or America.

India can in fact make a claim to be the worlds most homegrown and impressive democracy.

We are entering the Asian century. Unless we Europeans become more curious - to civiliazation, history, politics and economy in the Global South - we will become the big losers of history.

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

You’ve been given free access to this article from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

India’s loudest political fight obscures a more urgent one https://t.co/v3palnq5Bj

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

IAF finalises Rafale RFP, sets stage for fighter production before Modi & chief AP Singh fly to France https://t.co/nWC5iR9y1X via @theprintindia

[Mountain Rats @mountain_rats]

Pakistan is pushing a proposed “Islamic NATO” with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Pakistan, aiming to build a regional defence bloc that reduces reliance on external powers. If it takes shape, it could reshape West Asian security dynamics

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

The Economist's article can be divided into two parts - first on West Bengal and Mamta and second on PM Modi and BJP. The West Bengal/Mamta part needed to be said and surprisingly it did call out clearly. Usually they are shy of calling out non-BJP parties.

What they are not shy about is PM Modi and BJP. The default starting point is Hindu Nationalism - and the attendant points. Little analysis needed. No wonder they have been calling wolf for over a decade and have blinders on. Most of the time what they predict under "may" does not come to pass. Best to ignore the last part of the article.

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

The BJP has beaten a bad ruler in West Bengal. But India must not become a de facto one-party state https://t.co/OtyS0pzBE3

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

The Economist's article can be divided into two parts - first on West Bengal and Mamta and second on PM Modi and BJP. The West Bengal/Mamta part needed to be said and surprisingly it did call out clearly. Usually they are shy of calling out non-BJP parties.

What they are not shy about is PM Modi and BJP. The default starting point is Hindu Nationalism - and the attendant points. Little analysis needed. No wonder they have been calling wolf for over a decade and have blinders on. Most of the time what they predict under "may" does not come to pass. Best to ignore the last part of the article.

[Sreemoy Talukdar @sreemoytalukdar]

West Bengal should have its own version of Nuremberg trials to bring to justice those perpetrators who committed unspeakable crimes against humanity.
And the victims of these atrocities MUST NOT BE FORGOTTEN.
@BJP4Bengal must instill a culture of remembrance through memorials and awareness campaigns.

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

NYT and other left leaning outlets still can't understand the change happening in India due to PM Narendra Modi and BJP.

They are oblivious, or worse, ignore the history of Congress rule, and take the path of least resistance where every thing is reduced to the lowest common denominator of communalism and religious nationalism. No further analysis required. They will be writing the same troupe ten years from now too.

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

@TheEconomist For the gloss over by The Economist on the state of WB- here's some hard analysis...

https://t.co/bdRm4YsWsU

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

The surge of relief and elation among Bengalis following Mamata’s ouster mirrors the scenes that unfold after an Arab dictator is toppled, and reveals just how bankrupt our democratic institutions have become, allowing dictators to thrive under the cover of democracy.

My views:

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

@TheEconomist The Economist struggles to understand the political changes in India.

Former Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim
https://t.co/a0zt2KMIsB

[News Arena India @NewsArenaIndia]

Former Norwegian Minister Erik Solheim-

"I find it very, very hard to understand why there is so negative coverage of PM Modi in Western media."

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

@TheEconomist The Economist still struggling to come to terms with changes in India. Would gloss over the issues in WB under Mamta but keep harping on BJP and PM Narendra Modi.

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

Anand sums up the chaos of WB over the last 10 years...

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

The surge of relief and elation among Bengalis following Mamata’s ouster mirrors the scenes that unfold after an Arab dictator is toppled, and reveals just how bankrupt our democratic institutions have become, allowing dictators to thrive under the cover of democracy.

My views:

[ManMod @Man14Mod]

Relevant adaptation of the Very Poplar Song #bengalvoting #Bengalelections

[BJP West Bengal @BJP4Bengal]

যাদের কাজ শুধু স্লোগান তৈরি করা তাদের উদ্দেশ্যে বাংলার মানুষের তরফ থেকে একটি স্লো-গান। #BanglaDidirThekeMuktiChay

[Anand Ranganathan @ARanganathan72]

With Kerala gone, the commies are now left with only two strongholds in India - JNU and media.

[The Babylon Bee @TheBabylonBee]

We Asked AI To Show America Without Republicans