Inflammation

Reading about life style changes relative to inflammation and Afib, I keep reading how inflammation contributes to this syndrome.
Dr. Axe, Natural Ways To Treat Inflammation - [draxe.com], talks about inflammation:


“Various lifestyle practices can help control arrhythmia symptoms and keep them from getting worse, especially inflammation.
Inflammation is one of the major risk factors for conditions like a heart attack, stroke, diabetes, thyroid disorders and even mood-related disorders.”

“6. Use an Over-the-Counter Anti-Inflammatory”

“Taking aspirin (Ecotrin) at times can help reduce inflammation that contributes to a fibrillation.
This can be helpful when symptoms are uncomfortable, but it’s still important to get advice
from your doctor and always discuss what other medications might be necessary to lower complications.”

Would appreciate thoughts and feedback.

All sounds reasonable, Catherine. Wonder why he doesn't mention mitochondria function and how it relates to afib? Or doesn't it?

Catherine - The recommendation for long-term use of aspirin should come with a caveat because of the potential risks that are documented by an abundance of studies over a long period of time. If the focus is to reduce inflammation - in this case, in those with Afib - then there are many other methods to do that more safely than take aspirin for a long time.

It’s important to learn (from specific tests) if you have elevated markers for ‘silent inflammation’ and then take steps to manage what’s out of range by following the protocols to reduce inflammation for that specific marker.

Inflammation increases the risks of hyperviscosity and, therefore, the risk of adverse clotting which is an obvious concern in those with afib because of blood stagnation in the heart but is certainly a health-risk factor for the general population as well. (Note that the topic is about ‘silent inflammation’ versus inflammation that is the body’s response to injury.)

This post on Silent Inflammation lists the tests and more. For some reason it was moved to the General Health section but it certainly belongs here.

Silent Inflammation – Risk Marker for Stroke, Heart Attack & Much More
April 07, 2012
[www.afibbers.org]

Also

Sticky, thick blood - risk of stroke or MI
September 06, 2012
[www.afibbers.org]

Clot risk
April 15, 2017
[www.afibbers.org]


Magnesium Deficiency
In addition to the Silent Inflammation markers testing, it’s well known that most afibbers are deficient in the critical electrolyte/mineral, magnesium. Ideally, one would be tested appropriately to learn their intracellular levels, but generally, a good start is to begin supplementing so that, with time, one can hopefully expect to increase IC Mg levels which will help with Afib and also improve the C-reactive protein marker of silent inflammation.

Here’s a recent study. This gives the top range of less than 3 mg/L, but most functional medicine doctors prefer less than 1 mg/L.

Magnesium Lowers Levels of Inflammatory Marker
A systematic review and meta-analysis epublished in May 2017 concluded that magnesium supplementation lowers concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP).

Scientists evaluated the results of 11 randomized controlled trials that assessed the effect of oral magnesium supplementation on plasma CRP. Overall, magnesium did not lower plasma CRP levels. However, in a subgroup of subjects with CRP levels >3 mg/L, a statistically significant decline in CRP concentrations was observed compared to those with CRP levels ≤3 mg/L.

According to the reviewers, "Results of the present meta-analysis indicated that magnesium supplementation reduces CRP levels among individuals with inflammation (CRP levels >3 mg/dL). This finding suggests that magnesium supplements may have a beneficial role as an adjuvant for the management of low-grade chronic systemic inflammation."
Reference: Simental-Mendía LE, et al. Curr Pharm Des. May 25, 2017. [Epub ahead of print.]

Additionally,
Barry Sears, PhD has been educating on the risks of Silent Inflammation for well over 20 years. He has provided significant detail on the benefits of using the right type of Omega 3 fish oil to control inflammation safely. There are many reports online by Dr. Sears including this one:

Longevity, telomeres, inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction...

Chronic Inflammation - hurts,
Silent Inflammation – kills.

Barry Sears, PhD.
[www.healthfreedoms.org]

[www.google.com]


I also recommend visiting the website of Integrative Cardiologist, Stephen Sinatra, MD, as he goes into detail about the importance for tests for inflammatory markers. His core nutrient program is part of The Strategy recommendations.

Here's a clip from his presentation...."Fire in the Heart"

Introduction

"Most of us have some idea of what inflammation is. If a wound gets hot, turns red, hurts, and swells, we recognize that inflammation is at work. In this instance, inflammation is a beneficial process, serving to immobilize and rest the area of injury as the rest of the immune system mobilizes to heal… Regardless of the source of assault on our bodies, inflammation is the “first alert” mechanism that calls into action the cells responsible for surveillance and protection, heralding them to go to work and limit the damage. These cells attack and destroy the invaders, and clean up the damaged cells, repairing and clearing as they go until a healthy state is restored. As such, inflammation is your body’s first line of defense against injury or infection.

Silent Inflammation
Unlike the above example, researchers now recognize another kind of inflammation: silent inflammation, or SI. This type of internal inflammation has an insidious nature and is the culprit behind the many chronic diseases that are primarily caused by poor lifestyle habits and environmental pollutants. The chronic and continuous low-level demand that silent inflammation places on the body’s defense systems results in an immune system breakdown.

In SI there is no regulated progression of a healthy inflammatory response, no planned sequence from the first alarm to the formation of the last new cell. Many of these reactions become intermingled and hamper one another. The body tissues themselves may lose their ability to recognize cells that are “self” from those that are not, and the body may mistakenly identify its own cells as foreign invaders. This internal programming error, if you will, continues to trigger and re-trigger immune responses, setting the stage for what we call autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, multiple sclerosis and scleroderma. The result is chaos, and what is even more disturbing is that this process may be happening year
after year without us even being aware of it. " end quote.

So... depending on test results, there are many natural recommendations that manage the silent inflammation without risk of side effects of long-term aspirin or similar.

Jackie


[And yes, Joe, mitochondrial function is a critical factor. There are posts on that topic as well as mitochondrial dysfunction is one of my favorites. ]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2018 11:49AM by Jackie.

I don't understand if Magnesium and other mineral control is so important to us with this disease why isn't the medical community responding. Why am I not offered IV minerals etc and why do they not monitor us at a cellular level? My doctor doesn't offer intracellular testing. Why do we have to buy tubs of magnesium and pot shot at the one that's works most effectively in our systems. Why is all this that can make such a big difference in our outcome....Voodoo?

Quote
tsco
I don't understand if Magnesium and other mineral control is so important to us with this disease why isn't the medical community responding. Why am I not offered IV minerals etc and why do they not monitor us at a cellular level? My doctor doesn't offer intracellular testing. Why do we have to buy tubs of magnesium and pot shot at the one that's works most effectively in our systems. Why is all this that can make such a big difference in our outcome....Voodoo?

Certainly mag doesn't help every afibber. It is worth a try as very little downside. It also helps many body systems in addition. However there is no $$ to be made on it, so no $$ to study.

One of my friends is a hand surgeon. We were chatting while backpacking and I described my personal afib remission protocol, including "magnesium to bowel tolerance." He said that would never fly with his patients or the FDA as too ambiguous...

A climbing buddy is an ER doc. I'd heard that it was standard to give someone showing up in the ER a bag of IV mag. I asked about this. He said it was common and it was also common for it to cause conversion to NSR.

One cardio I went to about six years ago was supportive of my mag habit. He said he'd done research on mag and arrhythmias in school.

George

tsco - I just watched an interview with David Brownstein, MD, who was talking about the impact of leaky gut syndrome on health and he was asked a question similar to yours. His response was (and is nothing new) that in medical school, very little is taught about the body's nutritional needs and everything focuses on finding a drug to prescribe for the symptoms presented.

He went on to say that after med school and he had practiced a while, he noted that many of his patients didn't respond well which was discouraging. He decided to learn more about healing through nutritional interventions and began incorporating that into his practice with great success... including relating a great story about how he helped his father improve via nutrition. So he has become a well-known and outspoken advocate for the additional education to learn the fundamentals of what nutrients the body requires to maintain health. Several organizations have been founded to accomplish this additional education.... ie, Institute for Functional Medicine, American Academy for Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) although many prefer to call it 'healthy aging.' Tthe Cleveland Clinic has added an Integrative Medicine department... and there are many dozens of individual clinics that are based on advanced education in the area of "integrative medicine" such as Jonathan V. Wright, MD, Tahoma, Washington clinic.

As far as why the experimenting with various forms of nutritional supplements... the main factor comes from 'biochemical individuality'.... partially genetic but also influenced by adaptations of each individual's metabolism of foods, nutrients and coping mechanisms to adapt to the 'fuel' provided. If it's all highly processed junk food with little actual nutritional value, then the body has to do 'workarounds' and cope. Eventually, that fails and damages cells, organs and systems.. which are diagnosed as various diseases and medications are prescribed to mask the symptoms but almost never repair the damage or replete the nutrients.

The potential complications and damage at the cellular level are mind-boggling. So... we say... try magnesium in this form or that, but if pathways are blocked in that individual's body, then results may not be realized...yet in another individual, it may be great. Over time, those in the field of functional medicine have learned that some forms are better than others and this becomes part of the education that is shared and passed along through patient successes and failures because of road blocks ..... such as damaged receptor sites for a particular nutrient caused by (as one example) a lifetime of consuming trans-fats. As you know, with magnesium, results and tolerance varies considerably by individual and for some, the form doesn't matter.

I can truly appreciate your frustration in the lack of advancement by the majority of doctors who have not yet incorporated the nutritional aspect of healing patients into their practice... (called Integrative Medicine - in some circles).
In my area, there are several with various levels of expertise and many others who claim to be, but aren't.
Now that we have the advanced communications technology, many of these doctors offer online/Skype patient consultations.

It is definitely not Voodo. In my personal history, I have numerous examples of botched conventional medical care that did more harm than good and, unfortunately, a couple with very devastating outcomes. The good news is that not long after developing afib, I was in the care of a Board Certified Family Medicine Functional Medicine practitioner who helped with overall nutritional testing to help stabilize my health so that I had the best possible outcome post-ablation... thanks to my hero, Dr. Natale!

Be well,
Jackie

Thank you Jackie for post 17937 and the links! While i'm sort of familiar with some it is a great resource for values and factors to look out for and all in a concise form!
Can't find it in 'Resources' if it's not there then it should be.

Have been wondering when the cardiologist put me on anti-coagulants without checking my blood. While i could understand his prescription while i was in afib i'm at a loss why after more than a year being afib free and having good ejection values (according to him, 56% from memory) he still recommended that i continue with anti coagulants (because i'm 67?).
Would i be wrong thinking that this is cooky cutter medical care?

Joe: It absolutely is a “cookie cutter medical care”. Actually my first visit with the cardiologist who prescribed taking anti-coagulants pointed to a chart taped to the office wall, when I asked him why I needed to take them. The risk was my gender and age.

Jackie: Thank you for those links, as I plan to look into them all. I confess, sometimes the content of your posts are “above my pay grade”, but I read every word, nevertheless.
I am very familiar with Jonathan Wright’s contributions. His book, Why Stomach Acid Is Good For You” helped me heal after suffering for nearly two years with laryngopharyngeal reflux (LPR), after a lengthy surgery. In a GERD forum, I read hundreds of posts by others who expressed their frustrations of visiting Gastros, to acupuncturists, to chiropracters and seeing no improvements with their horrible symptoms. I realized then that it would be futile for me to go the traditional route and set out to do my own research to heal myself.. Dr. Wright’s method was not an overnight cure, but necessitated commitment to follow his protocol and I made that commitment and it worked. I got my life back.

If cost was not a factor, I would always choose an Integrative/Functional doctor over the cookie cutter version.

Thank goodness for the internet, as I landed on this website by accident. The Strategy protocol has almost done away with my palps and Afib, since June. Still, though, I always remain cautiousely optimistic, as this is an unpredictable syndrome.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2018 07:28PM by Catherine.

Catherine - Fortunately, there many more physicians that share Dr. Wright's treatment philosophies who are sharing with books and now videos and such. I'm glad you had success with your GERD issue and that The Strategy tips are
also useful. One day at a time.

Be well,
Jackie