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afib

Irregular Heartbeat Cures: Forget Meds and Rely on this Instead

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I have covered the topic of irregular heartbeats like atrial fibrillation and what you can do to fix the problem in previous articles.

A visit to your cardiologist will leave you with instructions to cut caffeine intake and stress and likely a prescription for a beta blocker and maybe a blood thinner if there is a higher risk of stroke.  Ironically, the beta blocker will increase your risk of stroke (the very thing we’re trying to prevent) and diabetes (which can make a-fib worse).

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Irregular Heartbeats on the Rise

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Atrial fibrillation. Afib. Irregular heartbeat. Palpitations. It goes by many names. Regardless of what you care to call it, this condition is becoming more common.

I have addressed Afib in the past, outlining how powerful simple lifestyle changes are to help eliminate this condition, but it seems like word is just not getting out. As a result, the rates of people with irregular heartbeat continues to climb. This particular article gives some numbers to illustrate just how bad the problem has become. Here’s what they found:

  • By 2010 there were 33.5 million people worldwide with Afib.
  • Lost quality of life, measured basically as years of health lost, increased by 18.8% in men and 18.9% in women from 1990 to 2010.
  • From 1990 to 2010, the number of people with AF (per 100 000 population) increased in both men and women.
  • Worse, death rates from AFib complication rates increased 2-fold in women and 1.9-fold in men.

The bottom line is that the number of people affected by AFib is going up, while at the same time these people are losing quality of life and dying faster.

Don’t let anyone tell you this has nothing to do with lifestyle. It has everything to do with the choices we make. From stress to lack of exercise to a diet devoid of protective nutrients. If you happen to be one of the lucky ones affected by an irregular heartbeat, AND you’re willing to make some lifestyle changes to make it better, feel free to read through my earlier blog article on this very topic by clicking here.

Irregular Heartbeat: Skip Meds and Try These 6 Steps Instead

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By 2050, 12 million people will have the irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation, treatment of which will cost into the tens of billions of dollars.

For some, symptoms are as minor as an occasional notice of the heartbeat in the chest (palpitations) while for others it can be far more interfering, with symptoms like an irregular or rapid heartbeat, palpitations, lightheadedness, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath or chest pain.  Treatments can range from nothing to medications to control the heart rhythym (usually beta blockers, which will increase your risk of stroke and diabetes) or blood thinners to surgery to burn out the regions of the heart responsible for the irregular heartbeat.

If none of these options sound appealing to you, luckily there’s an easier answer.  But, as a warning, I’m going to sound like a broken record.  But before I go on to sounding like a broken record, let me explain something about atrial fibrillation and how it relates to the way your brain functions (which, having written the book on Migraines and Epilepsy, sort of makes me an expert on the topic).

The cells of the brain function very much like the cells that regulate your heartbeat.  They are heavily dependent on high levels of energy (in the form of ATP) to NOT fire.  Basically, a charge has to build up and build up until it is time for that cell to fire, whether it is to fire off a brain cell or the heart muscles.

Just like improving chronic migraine headaches or improving seizures in epilepsy, the key is to stop doing things to damage your mitochondria (the part of the cell that makes the needed ATP) and start doing things to improve the way your mitochondria function.  Which brings us back to this particular article.

In it, researchers put people with atrial fibrillation through a series of lifestyle changes, many focused around weight loss, to see how this had an impact on atrial fibrillation.  The lifestyle changes consisted of a very low calorie diet (800-1200 calories / day) using a complete meal replacement product (Prima Health Solutions, Kickstart) for 2 of the 3 daily meals for 2 months.  Overall the lifestyle program focused on 6 simple tenants:

  1. Calorie maintenance 800-1200 calories/day
  2. Low glycemic index foods
  3. High mono and poly unsaturated fats based foods
  4. Low saturated fats, cholesterol and sodium based foods
  5. Alcohol reduction (less than or equal to 30g/week)
  6. Initially 3 x 20 minute sessions of low intensity exercise per week (usually walking), slowly adding in 1 – 2 moderate intensity session(s) per week (jogging, brisk walking, swimming, cross-trainer, rowing machine, cycling)

So what happened to the participants that followed the diet compared to controls that just received general lifestyle advice?

  • Lost more weight (about 24 more pounds).
  • Atrial fibrillation symptom burden scores were lower (11.8 versus 6 points lower).
  • Atrial fibrillation symptom severity scores dropped lower (8.4 versus 1.7 points).
  • Number of episodes dropped by 2.5 per week.
  • Cumulative duration dropped per week (692-minute decline versus a 419-minute increase).
  • As a bonus, there was a reduction in interventricular septal thickness (a sign of less stress on the heart).

Not too shabby of an outcome, especially when you look at the number of minutes per week; basically the group that made the changes had a pretty hefty 18 HOURS less of atrial fibrillation per week.  With studies like these starting to accumulate, the idea of merely managing an irregular heartbeat with medications or a “wait and see” approach (notice that the control group had an increase of almost 4 hours per week over the 15 months of the trial) is a bad idea.

Lifestyle changes are a must for this type of irregular heartbeat.  But, then again, I did warn you that I was going to sound like a broken record.

Did You Know Your Irregular Heartbeat Causes Brain Damage?

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I don’t write much about atrial fibrillation or causes of irregular heartbeat, but I have a pretty strong understanding of how to fix it.

Why?  Because I wrote a book on migraines and seizures (which, incidentally, can be found by clicking here).  “What does that have to do with anything?” you ask.

Well, because the cells of the brain function very much like the cells that regulate your heartbeat.  They are heavily dependent on high levels of energy (in the form of ATP) to NOT fire.  Basically, a charge has to build up and build up until it is time for that cell to fire, whether it is to fire off a brain cell or the heart muscles.

Just like improving chronic migraine headaches or improving seizures in epilepsy, the key is to stop doing things to damage your mitochondria (the part of the cell that makes the needed ATP) and start doing things to improve the way your mitochondria function.  While that is beyond the scope of this blog post (other than mentioning that stress and too many low quality calories are major contributor), you can read about improving mitochondrial function in a previous blog article by clicking here.

The rates of Afib are increasing in direct proportion to how sick our population is.  Many times the condition is just watched, but in more problematic situations, beta blockers may be used (which will increase the risk of diabetes and stroke) or anticoagulants like warfarin or coumidin or a cardiologist may thread a wire up into your heart and burn out the cells that he or she believes are causing the problem (called ablation for afib).

All of this brings us to this particular study.  In it, researchers looked at what happens to the cognitive abilities of those over age 75 who developed atrial fibrillation.  Overall, it was clear that, in those who developed atrial fibrillation, there was a faster decline (about 2 years faster) in cognitive function that got worse the longer the Afib was present.

“But I’m not 75, so my Afib is not the same issue,” you say.

Yup.  It’s likely worse because YOUR atrial fibrillation will be present for many more years.  And while your atrial fibrillation may be noticeable, the subtle damage to your brain won’t be for decades to come.

The bottom line is that, if you have ANY degree of Afib, lifestyle changes are needed.  And caffeine avoidance, which may have been mentioned to you, is low on the list.  Stress management, exercise and a high quality / low calorie diet are at the top of the list.

You need to understand that the heart palpitations are only a single symptom of a much greater problem.