just how does caffeine 'cause' afib?

PC [or anybody else who can explain in layman's terms], i accept that caffeine is a trigger for afib, due to my own experience with it, but exactly how does it do that? Incidentally, i envy John Negus, who posted a little while ago that he drinks 3 cups a day and it doesn't give him afib. I sure do miss coffee, even 3 years later.
Peggy

Peggy--

The way in which coffee or caffein is a trigger for LAF is indirect. Coffee affects the kidneys and the excretiion of magnesium, potassium and other mineral nutrients in the urine.

Essentially coffee depletes the blood, and thus the cells, of magnesium, potassium and other vital minerals and thus makes one susceptible to LAF, if other conditions are also present, such as high vagal drive late at night.

I have found caffein to be a trigger for LAF for me if my diet is deficient, especially in magnesium. At present, I do drink coffee, perhaps one cup a day. The coffee I drink is espresso, which has lots of flavor, but only about half of the caffein of regular coffee.

Coffee taken in the moderate amount I am taking it, does not seem to be a problem for me now. But I have also been taking magnesium and other supplements daily for nearly a year and will continue to do so.

Zowie, you mean it isn't due to the stimulant properties of caffeine, but the magnesium depletion? If that's so, then the time i chugged half a cup right down, and went directly into afib, must have been coincidence and not causation. You think?
Peggy
PS, i remember an old post from Fran to the effect that non-organic coffee is full of organophosphate insecticides. If i decide to do some scientific experimentation, i think it will be with organic coffee.
Peggy

Peggy--

It just occurred to me that coffee's stimulating properties on the adrenal glands and elsewhere no doubt also contribute to mineral depletion because the hormones (eg adrenalin) produced require minerals in their chemical composition.

And I overlooked the possibility, as in your case, with adrenergic-type afib, that caffeine could directly help to trigger afib. My vagal afib is not induced directly by caffeine, but occurs late at night, 16 hours or so after I have drunk any coffee. The half-life of caffeine is about 3 to 6 hours, I think, so there would be very little, if any, caffeine in my system when I am susceptible to afib.

I drink 2-3 cups of Organic coffee a day, grind my own beans that I buy from health food store, it does not put me in afib, but an ordinary cup of coffee puts me in afib within 1/2 hour, I know it's the pesti/herbicides that I can not tolerate as coffee is one of the most sprayed crops of anything I know outside of strawberries.

Ella

Ella, maybe it was your old post i remember on this subject and not Fran's, because your post just now sounds like the identical language. Thank you.

San Fran Michael [or anybody who might know], do you think i have the adrenergic variety of afib? The first 2 bigtime episodes were at night after i had been asleep a while. I've never seen a cardiologist or an EP, just general practitioners who recognize that there is a poorly understood thing called atrial fibrillation, but that's all. The other major episode had to do with not sleeping for 2 nights, excess caffeine in the form of many cups of tea, 90+ degree temperatures with no a/c, and physical exertion. I wasn't taking magnesium supplements during these times either, as i am now.

Peggy

sounds vagal to me.
doesn't sound like you have had too many episodes so I wouldn't make
much of it if that is true. Just don't let any future episodes (if they occur)
to go too long. And take an asprin a day assuming there is no other health reason not to do so.

Thanks, Susan. I don't mean to make a big thing out of it but i can't seem to help it. Those 3 episodes were the only major ones, but up until i began supplementing with magnesium and potassium, and paying close attention to hydration, every now and then there would be a short afib episode which went away by itself. It was just enough to make me realize the problem wasn't gone. The research i did indicated that the normal progression of this disease is first a few episodes, then a lot, then chronic afib. I didn't like the sound of that and still don't.

About aspirin, i used to take at least one every day, but for the last year i have been taking a lot of naproxen for my lame old knees, and the 2 are not good to take together. I rely on garlic, vitamin E, and magnesium for blood thinners. This board has been invaluable, i have learned a whole lot here.

Since adding the K supplement [in the form of low-sodium v8] there have been no episodes of afib at all, and i fervently hope it stays that way. Due to information gleaned primarily here, my understanding is better about how i got this to begin with, and i hope i might have seen the last of it. I don't think i can go back to my old ways, though, and i don't think i know enough about it either. So i will be hanging around here for quite awhile longer. Besides, i like you people.

Peggy

where did you read that the normal progression of the condition leads
to chronic afib?


I am not so sure that this is true in the majority of cases.

I don't think it was in just one place that i got this idea. The literature i could find about afib led me to this conclusion, i don't know now just where to tell you. I don't any longer think its going to happen to me, though, because i am getting better, not worse. Time may prove me wrong, i just have to wait and see. And take real good care of myself, in marked contrast to how i have done most of my life.

Peggy

Susan, that was you who wrote a few days ago asking if afib was going to get worse, wasn't it?

Peggy

Susan, about where i read that afib usually gets more frequent and eventually progresses to chronic, there is a new post from Chris H. , title Cardio Visit, 10-18-03 2:54, in which he quotes his cardio expressing the conventional view regarding this topic. It is the next to last Q.,
Q. Will condition worsen....
A. In the majority of cases yes...remodelling...

Very interesting reading. But as i said, i don't think this is set in stone. I think that progress can at least be retarded, and who knows, maybe retarded so long that we might shuffle off this mortal coil from something completely unrelated before afib gets a chance to make our lives really miserable. I do know one thing for sure, and that is that conventional wisdom is often proved wrong, even in medicine.

Peggy

A couple of further thoughts on this topic have come to mind:

When our mineral deficiency is relatively great, we are much more susceptible to afib. In my experience, during the period before I started taking supplements, I had a few brief (a few minutes to about 30 minutes) experiences of afib which did not occur while I was in bed at the usual time very late at night. These incidences were triggered by such things as eating a late meal or lying in a certain position. It is possible that when one's mineral nutrient status is very poor, afib can be triggered both vagally and adrenergically.

This might explain why Peggy had an unusual attack after drinking a cup of coffee.

As to the expectation that afib will get worse-- medical evidence may suggest this, but I would suggest that this evidence is not very useful for us. First, the experience of the typical afib sufferer is not the same as the experience of those who read this bulletin board. Those who read this are, with some notable exceptions, taking responsibility for their health and taking action to improve it. This is not the case with medical patients generally, who tend to be passive, who don't question their physicians' advice and who don't educate themselves. "The doctor is god" is the usual perspective. Unfortunately most of these gods, like the rest of us, have feet of clay.

Second, many afibbers, perhaps most, are not even aware that they have afib because their symptoms are not bothersome. We cannot know whether this potentially very large group of people gets worse or not.

Third, if you expect that your afib can only get worse, it probably will.

We all have Hans Larsen to thank for this. It may even be that he has collected evidence that most readers of this website improve their condition, rather than letting it worsen through inaction or negative thinking.

Michael,
I think your on to something......... Cheers!

Joe

Peggy,

Sorry to be so long in responding to your question, but sometimes I miss them.

I certainly agree with what’s been said, but you might find the following interesting.

Caffeine is one of a group of central nervous system stimulants called methylxanthines (others are theophylline and theobromine - found in tea). Methylxanthines may react with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate(AKA PLP, P5P, Vitamin B6) leading to low plasma levels of this coenzyme. This coenzyme is required by glutamate decarboxylase. This latter enzyme is responsible for the degradation of glutamate, the ban of all vagal LAFers. It is the neurotransmitter for the parasympathetic nervous system.

So caffeine sensitivity, which can vary considerably from one person to the next, may indicate that you are a VMAFer as opposed to an adrenergic LAFer.

PC v54

Thank you PC, and thank you all. PC, i have been very curious whether i was probably vagal or adrenergic, not that it makes a huge difference but i was curious. I have never consulted a cardiologist, let alone an EP, and hope never to be ill enough to need either one. I thought probably vagal since the first 2 episodes happened during deep sleep.

My vitamin and mineral status are vastly improved since adopting recommendations found here. It has been 2 years now since the last major episode and close to 2 months since the last minor one, and i now think this thing may be beatable.

Think i will add a B50 supplement just to be sure. Will check first to see if it includes B6.

Peggy