PodMed is a weekly podcast from Johns Hopkins Medicine. In it, Elizabeth Tracey, director of electronic media for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and Rick Lange, MD, president of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso and dean of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech, look at the top medical stories of the week.

This week's topics include best medication for initial diabetes therapy, Ebola update, lowering blood pressure after stroke, and an LDL variant and aortic valve disease.

Program notes:

0:41 Ebola update in NEJM

1:41 Case fatality rate 74%

2:39 Even with fever don't have detectable virus for a few more days

3:34 Let's base this on sound science

3:50 Blood pressure lowering after stroke

4:50 Blood pressure medicine initiated, continued, or discontinued

5:51 Used to be based on 'common sense'

6:11 Initial therapy for folks with DM

7:09 No difference in adverse events

8:07 Due to marketing of other medications

8:33 An LDL variant and aortic stenosis

9:23 There is a clear association

10:20 End