Is sugar the culprit

Hi All,

I have been thinking for some time that sugar levels have something to do with Afib. My triggers are sugary sweets, sweet drinks (like fanta) carbohydrates (bread) and in combination with high carb meal, wine.

I haven't got my theory proven yet but recently purchased a blood glucose meter, and have conducted some tests.
My fast blood levels are normal ranging from 5 to 6 mmol/L (90 to 108). After a fast day it is a little lower about 4.7 (85)
In a previous post I said most of my Afib happens on the day after a fast day. see [www.afibbers.org]

On a fast day my diet does consist of carbs (bread) but not as much as on a non fast day.
My blood sugar levels appear normal on the fast day, but on one occasion the day after (non fast day) my blood sugar went from 4.7 to 9.2 (85 to 165) after consuming a high carb breakfast. lucky for me I didn't go into Afib. Why, I don't know, I am guessing that my pancreas and liver were functioning good on that day and was able to counter the spike.

I have since had an Afib event where I was able to check my blood sugar level about 5 minutes after it started.
They were; 9.8 mmol/L (176), heart rate 140 ppm, then 90 minutes later 7.6 (137) , 3 hours later 5.8 (105), 4.5 hours later 5.5 (99) heart rate 95 ppm. After about 6 hours I was back in NSR.
The surprising thing is that the blood spike wasn't followed by a blood crash as I had expected, and that my heart rate seemed to come down when the sugar level came down.

What do we make of this? any comments?
Has there been any research done about blood sugar levels and Afib??

Regards
Colin

I think you may be on to something. If the test and results are repeatable a few times I would tend to think this is an area to focus on.
In any case I have noted in myself that consuming much sugar (sweets) make me feel stiff the next day. I try to avoid sugar. I also need protein to not have low blood sugar after a meal. The numbers seem to be ok, but I can still feel things are not optimal. I won't consume a carbohydrate without some protein.

Good for you for being proactive to help yourself be healthy.

Don

Colin,

It's very typical for blood sugar spikes to happen during an AFIB attack and can be part of the stress response cascade caused by the AFIB itself. Once the AFIB terminates or is cardioverted then serum glucose tends to drop rather quickly. The same is often true for BP spikes as well during the peak of a very symptomatic AFIB attack and it too tends to quickly normalize or at least reduce a lot once the arrhythmia terminates either spontaneously or after an ECV.

While high surgery dietary intake is certainly not good for you on multiple levels and could well contribute toward triggering, the spike in blood sugar with AFIB does not necessarily imply that the spike came first followed by triggering of AFIB.

There are other nuances to this association but my plane from Orlando is landing in Phoenix shortly here Monday night Phoenix time around 7:45 and so I have to shut down my phone so it's sayonara for now!!

Take care,
Shannon

I wrote about a friend in CR73 <[www.afibbers.org] . She is a WPW ablatee. Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome is where there are multiple pathways through the AV node. The ablation destroys all but the "normal" one. WPW people can have different rhythms and are also at much higher risk for afib. This is germane because my friend noticed the prevalence of PAC's during heavy exercise when she'd eaten a higher carb meal the day before. We recorded tachograms (beat to beat heart rate vs. time) during exercise. The PAC's were very frequent and disrupted the ventricular pumping such that she'd not be able to continue at high exertion. She learned that if she stuck to a very low carb diet, the PAC's would not come on. She repeated the experiment many times where she'd have a high carb day and then exercise the next, as she had a very hard time not eating carbs. Also had family situations that were difficult for her to keep low carb. Don't recall her carb limit, it was either 30 or 50g/day.

As Shannon mentions, stress will cause the liver to excrete glycogen, thus raising blood pressure. If you talk to someone with a Type I diabetic child, they'll tell you it is very hard to control the blood sugar when the child is sick.

The downside of a ketogenic diet for an afibber are the electrolyte shifts that happen during the two week (ish) conversion period. High insulin signals the kidney to conserve sodium and likewise low insulin (like on a low carb diet) signals sodium excretion. This can be severe enough to cause afib. It was for me, However it only happened once, 5 1/2 years ago. I've maintained keto adaptation since, though my diet is primarily plant based and high fiber. See <[www.afibbers.org] and <[www.afibbers.org] for more of what I do.

George

Hi Colin,

I was 100% convinced refined sugar or carbs or salt were the culprit for me (particularly when my afib events would be more frequent around Christmas time when my eating habits would tend to more sweets, cookies, etc). I was 100% wrong. I gave up all refined sugars and cut back the carbs (I did lose 15 pounds that wasn't really necessary to lose), always avoided the salt, and still the afib kept coming back. For me, the propafenone gradually lost effectiveness, and no matter what dietary strategy I tried, I would still eventually have an afib event. I had an ablation in September and so far, so good. I still avoid sugars 97% of the time just because they're generally just bad. I'm still no fun in the grocery store because I avoid packaged food and that was a habit I practiced long before afib came along.

I was no fun at restaurants or parties because I'd silently avoid eating most of the food worried about salt or sugar. I'm learning to relax a little bit and not feel guilty if I have that little sliver of birthday cake. I'm not saying I'm cured, but the ablation has gone a long way for me to keep from worrying about the next event (and what I did to cause it. I'm not saying sugar is not a trigger for you, because we're all different and this may be your answer. I do know I spent a lot of time blaming my alleged shortcomings convinced that I could eventually find the answer and avoid the ablation or switching medication. And I couldn't....

Doreen

Colin - Sugar (itself) or starchy carbs that metabolize quickly to glucose are totally, unhealthy foods regardless of whether one has Afib or not. Foods and beverages that contain added sugar are just deadly to one's system. There is just nothing good to report about that short or long-term. Breakfast should always focus on protein and healthy fat. Skip the carbs so you don't set yourself up for a 'rocky' day in terms of blood glucose. If you try more toward Paleo eating and reduce carbs significantly, you may find that lessens your afib events; especially, since sugar reduces intracellular magnesium stores.

You may recall my mentioning that initially, my afib experiences involved a complication with adrenal burnout as well and what I learned back then was if I became hypoglycemic as a result of the 'rebound effect' from consuming a starchy carb or beverage with sugar, I'd slip into afib. This often happened in the middle of the night and especially on weekends when I'd be partying late, eating sugary party foods, drinking alcohol (which metabolizes like sugar in the body). And often if I skipped lunch or didn't have time to eat decently, then I'd get the low blood glucose (complicated by job stress) and Afib would be triggered. The body's response to low blood glucose is to secrete adrenaline to motivate one to eat something to supply the brain with essential glucose. I would react to the adrenaline with Afib.

Eventually, I was diagnosed as having Metabolic Syndrome which is the precursor to diabetes. Fortunately, with strict dietary habit changes and lots of adrenal nutritional support supplements, I was able to reverse that trend. Twenty years later, I am still very careful and don't eat high carb meals, desserts and have only a very occasional small glass of red wine.

There are countless reports showing that high carb diets cause more than diabetes. Cancer, for instance...

Abstract
Sugars, primarily glucose and fructose, are the main energy source of cells. Because of their hydrophilic nature, cells use a number of transporter proteins to introduce sugars through their plasma membrane. Cancer cells are well known to display an enhanced sugar uptake and consumption. In fact, sugar transporters are deregulated in cancer cells so they incorporate higher amounts of sugar than normal cells. [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Cancer Feeds on Fructose, America's #1 Source of Calories [www.nytimes.com]

Sugars in diet and risk of cancer in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Higher sugar intake associated with lower cognitive function [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]


Jackie

Hello Colindo et al. While all the foregoing is true, there is one very important thing going on with sugar intake and the subsequent insulin surge that deserves mention here, and that is that the manufacture of insulin uses up potassium. I do not know how much or how come, or exactly how long it takes after sugar intake, but it happens. Lots of sugar [think an oreo cookie binge, for example] uses up lots of potassium in making insulin enough to deal with the big sugar intake. A big pasta feed will sometimes do it to me as well. Afib is much more likely to happen in a potassium depleted state, in those of us who are susceptible to afib at least. Human bodies do not store potassium but depend on a regular potassium intake such as would be happening if we were still in a state of nature, grazing on K-containing greenstuff all the time. When there is not enough potassium on hand to operate all functions, our bodies do a kind of triage, supplying the functions that are necessary to maintain life before those that can still function in an impaired state. We can survive if the heart has not got enough potassium to maintain a regular heartbeat, as all of us know from having survived many afib episodes. We are not comfortable during an episode but when the heart is able to resume NSR, we are still alive.

Have you ever met a type 1 diabetic? These people do not have the ability to make insulin, potassium replete or not, and they are dependent on an exterior supply of insulin in order to survive. Think of those syringes that type 1 diabetics always have, and the insulin that occupies space in their refrigerators along with the milk cartons and the butter and the remains of last night's supper in Tupperware containers. The reason they have all that medical stuff is that without injecting insulin very frequently and regularly, these people will fall into coma and die. Dead, the kind where the ambulance takes you to the funeral parlor, not to the hospital.

You and me can and do make insulin, but we sometimes use up all the available potassium in our bodies in making this insulin. As some of us have found out, sometimes potassium intake [for me, a big glass of water with a rounded teaspoonful of K gluconate stirred into it] will convert us to NSR once more. For this to happen, it is also necessary to maintain adequate magnesium intake, which i do by faithful supplementation with magnesium glycinate tablets [taken to bowel tolerance] from the NOW foods company, gotten by mail from iHerb via the internet. Anybody who wants to learn more about keeping away afib by electrolyte supplementation should research Jackie's big potassium and magnesium posts, several years back in the archives now. She did one or more on taurine too, and reading those posts will help you understand these important topics. Maybe Jackie will post the location of those posts and save you the labor of using the search function to find them. Either way, look them up and study them. It will help you understand why sugar intake predisposes you to afib. [It does me too, if that is helpful].

PeggyM

Hi Peggy - Good to see you posting. Thanks for the reminder about the potassium depletion. Obviously, extremely relevant with Afib since sugar intake depletes both of those critical electrolytes in response.

Here are some links to past posts including that titled "Let's Not Forget About Potassium"....
[www.afibbers.org]
[www.afibbers.org]
[www.afibbers.org]

And no discussion on potassium should be without reference to CR 72 Potassium/Sodium Ratio in
Atrial Fibrillation - Critically important to understand this function.
[www.afibbers.org]

Be well,
Jackie

Hello Jackie. I have had some computer disasters and some ill health. I am not dead yet, tho. Still reading all posts here, still able to respond sometimes. All the best to all of you.

PeggyM

Peggy,

Great to hear from you!

All the best!

George

And to you too George. Happy Unbirthday to you as well.

PeggyM



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2016 07:51AM by peggyM.

Thanks everyone who responded to my post.

I have learned a lot about blood sugar levels spiking up during an afib event and the likely cause being low potassium, triggered by sugar.
I have also learned from PeggieM that taking a heaped teaspoon of potassium in a glass of water may terminate an afib event. As well, from one of Jackie's links the Ativan conversion which is worth a try. (via PeggieM)

Thank you
Colin