Atrial fibrillation (A fib) is a common heart rhythm that occurs in people as they age and/or have heart conditions such as coronary disease, valvular heart disease, or cardiomyopathies. Once it develops, it can be a major hassle, as well as a health threat. Hospitalization is often necessary with multiple medications introduced: drugs to slow the heart rate that is typically 150-200 beats per minute and causes breathlessness, lightheadedness, even heart failure; medications to thin the blood to prevent stroke, which can be catastrophic; medications to convert the rhythm back to normal. And, because the imperfect ablation procedure to reduce/eliminate A fib pays electrophysiologists very well, ablation is frequently offered.
There are a number of simple strategies you can follow to prevent having atrial fibrillation and even reduce the frequency and duration of intermittent recurrences. Unfortunately, once the rhythm becomes frequent or persistent, the damage to your heart’s conduction system has been done and the rhythm cannot be suppressed without a procedure such as ablation or to simply live with the rhythm with lifelong need for drugs to control heart rate and blood thinners to prevent stroke.
The key is to therefore undertake these strategies as early in life as possible, as once A fib begins, it becomes harder and harder to suppress, bouts become longer and longer and more frequent, and eventually 24-hours-per-day persistent.
Efforts that reduce A fib potential include:
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- Wheat/grain elimination, net carb limitation—just as we do in the Undoctored and Wheat Belly lifestyles that generates frequent reports of reduced A fib recurrences
- Magnesium supplementation—Severe magnesium deficiency is the rule due to the need for water filtration that removes all magnesium, consumption of grains that contain phytates that bind most magnesium in the gastrointestinal tract and make it unavailable for absorption, and the reduced magnesium content of modern produce.
- Omega-3 fatty acids—The dose we use of 3600 mg per day of EPA + DHA likely makes a modest contribution to heart rhythm stabilization (a dose you cannot realistically achieve with krill oil nor linolenic acid)
- Vitamin D—Getting your vitamin D blood level in the desired range of 60-70 ng/ml appears to reduce potential for A fib.
- Oxytocin—The hypothalamic hormone oxytocin that we boost with our Lactobacillus reuteri yogurt provides heart rhythm-stabilizing effects in addition to all its other age-reversing benefits such as smoother skin, accelerated healing, and restoration of youthful strength and muscle.
- Heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback—Learn and habituate the phenomenon of bringing variation in heart beat with respiration and you can gain considerable control over A fib, as well as blood pressure and other stress responses. While in previous years we used the HeartMath device to generate the measures we track, you can now download the HeartRate+ Coherence smartphone app at no cost or an inexpensive upgrade that provides this fascinating function.
For anyone wanting to take their efforts even further, see the more detailed Undoctored Protocol for Atrial Fibrillation in our membership Undoctored Inner Circle.
Hi Doc
Thankyou for addressing the issue of AFIB …I have intermittent AFIB and am on Eliquis and Metroponal…and
gained weight. Trying to lose it as I was very thin up until
this beta blocker.I have all of your books which you kindly
signed when you came to Toronto a few years ago. We hope you will hold more seminars in the future…we know you are
so busy sharing and teaching all over the world. Thanks again
for the Wheat Belly Lifestyle.
Thank you so much for addressing A-Fib. I was diagnosed in 2016. I had been following a KETO diet and have wondered if that could have contributed to it. I also have a low platelet count so I am not anticoagulated, but am on Metropolol and Diltiazem. Do I need to have a blood test to make sure I am magnesium deprived before I take it? Is there a certain kind of magnesium you recommend? I also have 100 pounds to lose. I had a sigmoid colectomy in October of 2018 due to severe diverticulitis. Again, I wonder if eating a Keto diet contributed to that?
Debra Briese wrote: «…A-Fib. I was diagnosed in 2016. I had been following a KETO diet and have wondered if that could have contributed to it.»
You’ll find some web chatter on that theory, much from some presentation earlier this year by an investigator on the ARIC study, for which there appears to be no paper published as yet, so hard to say what it might really say.
Keto has no king, so to speak, so there’s no way for me to guess what the detailed characteristics of any arbitrary KD might have been, and what elements might be suspect in AF. Micronutrient deficiencies, particularly of electrolytes, including simple salt, are obvious suspects. I’ll have some additional personal speculation at the close here.
re: «I also have a low platelet count so I am not anticoagulated, but am on Metropolol and Diltiazem.»
Those I can’t speculate on usefully at all.
re: «Do I need to have a blood test to make sure I am magnesium deprived before I take it?»
Most people don’t bother, and most people are deficient. You can get an RBC-Mg test if you like.
re: «Is there a certain kind of magnesium you recommend?»
Here’s the program Quick Reference on Mg. It covers context, supplementation and testing.
re: «I also have 100 pounds to lose.»
The Undoctored program is very effective for that. I’ll bet it reduces pericardial inflammation too.
re: «I had a sigmoid colectomy in October of 2018 due to severe diverticulitis. Again, I wonder if eating a Keto diet contributed to that?»
See: Is the ketogenic diet dangerous?
I personally wonder about the vagus nerve in cardiac arrhythmias. I suspect it plays a significant role. It’s also the gut-brain highway, and is likely highly sensitive to the state of the microbiome. I’m sort of expecting that as we learn how to optimize gut flora, that things like AF can see dysbiosis eliminated as a contributory factor. This may or may not enable remission, but might be expected to slow or arrest progression.
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I have been following the. WB WOE for 15 months with great success in health and appearance areas, including A-Fib. I added the L. reuteri yogurt 12 months ago. The improvement in my overall health is so much that I am moving to a 3rd floor apt. from a 1st floor apt. What I moved to the 1st floor apt. 3 years ago, I was barely strong enough to walk up a small slant that leads to my bldg. I now swim, play tennis and volleyball (sort of 😉) and walk miles almost every day. I will forever be grateful to you, Dr. Davis for the I formation, encouragement and guidance and to my awesome DIL, Theresa, for encouraging me to at least “try it”. I’ll NEVER go back, as long as it is in my power to stick with it.