Heart failure (HF), affecting an increasing number of patients, is associated with several diagnostic, therapeutic, socioeconomic problems. Despite considerable advances, prognosis in HF--both in systolic failure and in that with preserved systolic function--is poor, which in part results from not the fully understood pathophysiology of this disease, and therapeutic approaches used at present. ...

1. Steinhubl SR, Berger PB, Mann JT III, et al. Early and sustained dual oral antiplatelet therapy following percutaneous coronary intervention: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA 2002;288:2411–20. 2. Mehta SR, Yusuf S, Peters RJG, et al. Effects of pretreatment with clopidogrel and aspirin followed by long-term therapy in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: the PCI-CURE st...

Generalized language-of-thought arguments appropriate to interacting cognitive modules permit exploration of how disease states interact with medical treatment. The interpenetrating feedback between treatment and response creates a kind of idiotypic hall of mirrors generating a synergistic pattern of efficacy, treatment failure, adverse reactions, and patient noncompliance which, from a Rate Di...