Elena Salmoirago-Blotcher, PhD, MD received her MD degree in 1985 from the University of Milan, Italy. She is board certified in cardiology in Italy where she worked as a clinical cardiologist for nearly 15 years. She recently completed the PhD program in Clinical and Population Health Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and she is now an Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. In 2009, she received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award for post-doctoral training in complementary and alternative medicine to study the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a phone-delivered mindfulness intervention for treatment of psychological distress in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators. Her research interests include the role of psychological and behavioral factors in the physiopathology of acute coronary events; the study of psychosocial determinants of cardiovascular disease with a particular focus on religiosity and spirituality; and the efficacy of mind-body approaches in the prevention and treatment of risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Articles
Frequency of Private Spiritual Activity and Cardiovascular Risk in Post-menopausal Women: The Women's Health Initiative (with George Fitchett, Kathleen M. Hovey, Eliezer Schnall, Cynthia Thomson, Christopher A. Andrews, Sybil Crawford, Mary Jo O'Sullivan, Stephen Post, Rowan T. Chlebowski, and Judith K. Ockene), Annals of Epidemiology (2013)
Purpose: Spirituality has been associated with better cardiac autonomic balance, but its association with cardiovascular...
Phone-delivered Mindfulness Training for Patients with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators: Results of a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial (with Sybil L. Crawford, James F. Carmody, Lawrence S. Rosenthal, Gloria Y. Yeh, Mary Stanley, Karen Rose, Clifford Browning, and Ira S. Ockene), Annals of Behavioral Medicine (2013)
Background: The reduction in adrenergic activity and anxiety associated with meditation may be beneficial for...
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Change in Health-Related Behaviors (with Matthew Hunsinger, Lucas Morgan, Daniel Fischer, and James Carmody), Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (2013)
How best to support change in health-related behaviors is an important public health challenge. The...
Vitamin D Supplementation and Depression in the Women's Health Initiative Calcium and Vitamin D Trial (with Elizabeth R. Bertone-Johnson, Sally I. Powers, Leslie Spangler, Joseph C. Larson, Yvonne L. Michael, Amy E. Millen, Maria N. Bueche, Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Robert L. Brunner, Ira S. Ockene, Judith K. Ockene, Simin Liu, and JoAnn E. Manson), American Journal of Epidemiology (2012)
While observational studies have suggested that vitamin D deficiency increases risk of depression, few clinical...
Spiritual well-being may buffer psychological distress in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) (with Sybil L. Crawford, Chau Tran, Robert J. Goldberg, Lawrence S. Rosenthal, and Ira S. Ockene), Journal of Evidence-Based Complementary & Alternative Medicine (2012)
Psychological distress is common in patients with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) and has been associated...