pv in normal heart patients.

Hello all,
just another quick question, Whe talking at the CCF, I asked Dr. Jones if normal people had these spurious electrical signals coming off the Pulmanary Veins... He said that he didn't know and wasn't sure if anyone had ever did any research on this.... This puzzled me. Wouldn't they know what was normal? Any thoughts or studies come to mind?

Joe

Oh, I guess they wouldn't be "patients".
Let's call them people with a normal heart........

How about it? Have you come across any information on a normal hearts dealing with this sporatic signal?

Still looking....
Joe

Interesting question.

Although I remember something about "normal heart" ectopics originating from the PV area, I can't give you a reference --which is what you need. If I can find one I'll pass it on.

From my old dim memory it was during some EP studies and theorized that the signals did not trigger enough "wavelets" (Moe theory) to create AFib. Most studies have been done on dogs or goats and there must be some published info in that area.

Keep looking....
Anton

I am not sure where I heard this, but I think rogue beats are often generated from the pulmonary veins. The whole area is a mass of muscles and tissues that just love to beat - which is why a heart will continue to beat awhile after it has been removed (I don't know that from first hand experience!). But most of the time, the sinus node is able to keep everything orderly. With AFIB, the sinus node is just overcome with the sheer number of rogue beats.

J.

I can't provide a definitive answer.

However, it takes much more than a few PACs from rogue cells in the vicinity of the PVs to trigger AF. So I'd have to say that "normals" (that don't have the requisite "loss of physiologic rate adaptation") probably have plenty of PACs originating from this area.

"Loss of physiologic rate adaptation" is the medical term for the problem that we AFers have. Our hearts have an abnormal AERP (atrial effective refractory period) and dispersion of refractoriness wrt HR. The PACs just start the AF ball rolling.

PC v54

J. is is my personal hypothesis that normal hearts that throw off an occasional wild beat, but do not go into afib, are hearts that do not have cellular irritation and also heart cells that have the appropriate ratio of essential minerals - magnesium, calcium, sodium and potassium to keep heart rhythm function on an even keel. A bit of mis-firing does not tend to trigger a chain reaction in these hearts.

Everything happens at the cellular level; therefore, cellular health including balance of essential nutrients in order to function is critical and is easy to imbalance through common factors of everyday living - stress, diet, lifestyle etc. Some people seem to be more vulnerable to imbalances than others. Certainly, we all know people who live very unhealthy lifestyles and don't get afib.

Should modern medicine ever decide to investigate the status of every afib patient in terms of cellular function and nutrient levels, surely they will find the real cause of atrial fibrillation. In the meantime, we are left with drugs and surgery to correct the problem.

Jackie