Alcohol’s Effect on Cardiovascular Disease is Partially Mediated Through Modulation of Stress Associated Brain Activity

Dr. Ahmed Tawakol, MD, Co-Director, Cardiac MR PET CT Program at Massachusetts General Hospital discusses his recent research, “Alcohol’s Beneficial Effect on Cardiovascular Disease is Partially Mediated Through Modulation of Stress Associated Brain Activity”. The study, which was presented at the 2021 American College of Cardiology’s annual scientific meeting, seeks to understand how alcohol plays a role in major adverse cardiovascular events.

Dr Tawakol graduated from Stanford Medical School and did his Medical Residency and Cardiovascular Diseases Fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He subsequently completed training in Nuclear Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, after which he joined the Cardiology Division staff. His clinical focus is in nuclear cardiology and general cardiology, with a special focus on the identification of patients at highest risk for atherothrombotic event.

Dr Tawakol’s research interest is in imaging of atherosclerosis. His work has focused on developing novel diagnostic approaches and novel treatment strategies for atherosclerosis. To that end, Dr Tawakol has developed and validated molecular methods to characterize atherosclerotic plaques, and has made seminal observations validating the use of FDG-PET imaging for the measurement of atherosclerotic plaque inflammation. Currently, he is leading several multi-center trials to evaluate interventions targeting plaque inflammation and is evaluating the potential clinical role of vascular PET imaging for improving the identification of patients at highest risk for atherothrombotic events.