Ragavendra R Baliga

Who is Ragavendra R Baliga?

Ragavendra R Baliga, MBBS, MD, MBA, FACC, FACP, FRCP is a Professor of Medicine at The Ohio State University School of Medicine in Columbus, Ohio. He is a consulting editor of Heart Failure Clinics of North America, an indexed medical journal along with James B. Young, MD, Executive Dean, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio. This is journal is known for editorials championing novel and esoteric mechanisms pertaining to cardiac function including ‘The Heart as the Concertina Pump’ and suggesting that stiffness of the great arteries contribute to cardiorenal syndrome. The most provocative editorial is a recent one that discusses the role of implantable cardiac defibrillators in sudden death. He is also Vice-Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, at The Ohio State University of Medical Center.

Using pioneering positron emission tomography technqiues at the MRC Cyclotron Center at Hammersmith Hospital, London along with Prof J.S. Kooner, Dr Stuart Rosen and Prof Paulo Camici, he demonstrated that angina occurring after a meal is due to "intramyocardial steal", wherein blood is redistributed from ischemic areas of the myocardium to the normally supplied myocardial in order to maintain overall myocardial blood flow. This mechanistic paper was published in the journal Circulation. Another paper published in the American Journal of Cardiology investigating the role of meal components showed that the carbohydrates contribute significantly to the pathogenesis of post-prandial angina. He also worked with Professor Christopher Mathias, FRCP, St. Mary’s Medical School and Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine and Prof Hans L. Frankel, FRCP, National Spinal Injuries Center, Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Ayelsbury.