The AFIB Conspiracy

This past weekend I attended my 35 year high school reunion in Louisville.
While driving down Poplar Level Rd and taking in the sites I noticed a bill board sign close to a local hospital.
It was a "Is your heart aflutter?" sign advertising new treatments at the hospital.

I think about how people my Mom's age, my Grandmother's age who never ever heard of Afib or fluttering hearts.

So I'm driving along and thinking this is becoming so prominent of a problem that we are starting to see billboard signs????

What causes this condition ? Why is it becoming more and more prominent ?

There is a reason and the true medical community has to know why. Is there something, some reason like not panicing the population that we are not being told? Obviously the AFIB treatment, medicine industry has become a bizillion dollar and growing medical "area" or is it that our foods or environment are affecting certain ones of us?
Jeez, I am not a conspiracists but what Hay?

MSG may be one of the Conspirators.
Cardiac – Arrhythmia, Atrial fibrillation, Tachycardia, Rapid heartbeat, Palpitations, Slow heartbeat, Angina, Extreme rise or drop in blood pressure.
That above is just a drop in the bucket.
I stumbled across a website about how much MSG is in pizza's.
[foodbabe.com]

MSG side effects Search
[fficial&client=firefox-a&channel=sb#channel=sb&q=msg+side+effects&revid=295941094&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial" rel="nofollow">www.google.com]

Other Names for MSG
Names of ingredients that contain processed free glutamic acid (MSG)
[www.truthinlabeling.org]

It never stops about all the stuff MSG is in, or how they keep renaming it. Enjoy yourselves.

Afib has always been around, just more in the open now. also, our population has greatly increased. My mother had AF, my aunt, they both died in their 90s, my grandmother had heart problems, I don't know what exactly she had but she died in her 70s of heart failure, so she may very well had AF.

Liz

Non-lone afib can have underlying causes that are associated with the obesity epidemic and poor insulin sensitiviy (high blood pressure, athero and arterio sclerosis & etc). As the population gets older and heavier, more afib would be expected.

Also, the "new" anti-coagulants are much more expensive than warfarin so they are heavily advertised. Same is true with ablation. It wasn't all that long ago it was not an option. The standard treatment was anti-coagulation and rate control. Now that there is a profit that can be had, advertising is ubiquitous. Before, not many talked about it.

George

Hello everyone,
So, do you all think cave men or cave women experienced Afib back then, but they thought it was something else, then shake their heads and went back to hunting?

Duke

They generally didn't live long enough to have problems like afib.

Think George nailed it: new meds (eg., "novel" anticoags) and ablation & related AFib procedures represent a highly lucrative business.

And there's a huge market of baby boomers out there that will be prime targets for the above.

/L

My theory - we have damaged the biom in our guts to the point that we are not absorbing the electrolytes we need. The highly processed food, laced with high fructose and lots of chemicals (including MSG), and void of nutrients is killing us slowly. We are basically not being good hosts to the trillions of bacteria in our bodies. Afib is simply a result of declining physical health.

Ron:

Bull, "Afib is simply a result of declining physical health", that is simply not true. A lot of afibbers are very fit, slim, and as a rule eat better than the general public.

Liz

My grandfather was diagnosed with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation when he was 65 in 1945. He was prescribed digitalis and lived to age 83, still active and continuing his work as a church minister until he died. After my brother and I were diagnosed with it (both around the same age) we found, while going through my mother's things, the letter from the specialist to my grandfather's family doctor with the diagnosis. All my life I had understood that my grandfather had a bad heart, and he used to have "heart attacks." But then he would be fine a few hours later. Now I realize what he was having were afib episodes.

Marg

Duke
Exactly.....

I get that maybe there were cases of Afib or some arythmia problems way back when but there is no way it was as crazy prominent as now. I mean unless people just died and they said it was a heart attack. But the unruly heart is plainly noticeable and drives you crazy and I cant imagine it was overlooked or put off as something else. Why is it becoming EPIDEMIC ? Has to be a reason and they have to know why.
I think Ron and Tom are on to something maybe but then you wonder why the mass population isnt having the same problems we are. ??

I've noticed that when I share I have afib, I find out many around me have it, too. However I have to be the one to share first, otherwise nobody says anything.

I caught it in one of my monitors on my mother, only once. It was an adrenergic trigger, while I was taking her for a walk. It was after her getting congestive heart failure. She was very prone to bigeminal PAC's with exercise. Mom ate very "cleanly" most of her life, cooking food from scratch from organic ingredients. When I had to put her in memory care, the sodium load from their food caused her congestive heart failure. Or I should say accelerated the appearance of the CHF symptoms.

My father's brother had it also, but his was caused by a valve replacement operation.

Nobody in my family got there from chronic fitness like I did, they were much more sedentary.

MSG was an infallible trigger for me - but there were others - and sometimes AF struck without any discernible trigger at all. If it can happen, it will.

Afhound,

Yes often there are no readily identifiable triggers for a given episode, especially when you had it long enough for structural remodeling to have altered the substrate of endothelial and myocardial tissue lining the atriums to the point where AFIB becomes more or less self-sustaining. At that point, the heart is so prone to accept AFIB as normal it can slip in and out with just minor shifts in electrolyte balance or inflammatory changes without having a defined external trigger set things off. The next thing you know you are in persistent AFIB and the trigger issue, though still active, takes a back seat to the ever presence of the beast.

Shannon

The increasing incidence of AF has been has been discussed in many previous posts…often referenced as a ‘disease of civilization’…

…..indicating that the food supply has become with time more deficient in core nutrients. This includes both soil nutrient depletion plus the abundance of packaged, processed, convenience food consumption as the norm. Even whole, fresh fruits and vegetables have far less mineral/vitamin content than in that of several decades ago when AF was less of an ‘epidemic.’ Now we witness that arrhythmias are occurring in younger and younger people along with other manifestations of nutritional deficiencies and poor eating habits often influenced by chemical food additives and taste enhancers that are excitoxic to heart cells.

In the case of AF, it’s fundamentally a magnesium deficiency. And certainly, magnesium deficiency is well known to cause a variety of other problems besides AF. Equally important is the overpowering sodium content of foods compared with less-than-optimal potassium levels.

Perhaps the conspiracy is the fact that repleting electrolytes is fairly easy and definitely economical… compared with expensive drugs (read big revenue profits) and procedures. Yet the medical establishment remains silent about the importance of magnesium and potassium? Although, they certainly are vocal about calcium supplements which are actually detrimental and only recently has the caution about calcium overload being publicized to any extent.

Did you ever have a cardiologist or EP ask you about or test for your intracellular electrolytes? Not likely.

Magnesium deficiency has been shown to cause fibrosis and fibrosis definitely causes Afib. Repleting magnesium along with using systemic enzymes can reverse the fibrotic buildup.

Many important magnesium books have been available for years, yet outside of holistic, integrative or functional medicine circles, doctors remain ignorant about the fundamental science of how electrolytes function to keep the heart’s electrical conduction system working properly. We don’t magically obtain electrolytes from the air; it takes a focus on proper eating and often supplementing to maintain the basic, requisite levels.

Check some of the past posts on the topic of “AF is a Disease of Civilization” and overall discussions on food choices failing to support health. It’s a common thread in virtually all health related issues… lack of optimal nutrients available from food to support health.

Visit the Magnesium Water website of Paul Mason and start reading to clear up doubts on the fundamental importance of magnesium. The original book on magnesium (Magnesium Deficiency in the Pathogenesis of Disease) by Mildred Seelig, MD, MPH is on the website. Amazing resource.
www.mgwater.com

Just a few of many previous threads on this topic….

There are numerous study references in both Conference Room Sessions 24 and 75 on Cardiac Fibrosis and Magnesium deficiency…

Afib and Cardiac Fibrosis [www.afibbers.org]

Cardiac Fibrotic Remodeling [www.afibbers.org]

See also:

Re: AFib caused by endurance exercise (studies)
October 07, 2012

Exercise and Arrhythmia

I’d like to direct you to a report titled “Correcting Magnesium May Prolong Life” by William J. Rowe, MD, that was referenced in a magnesium thread (General Health Forum) not long ago and to share with you excerpts from several of many very important observational articles by Dr. Rowe.

Last February, when that observational report first circulated, I began following the various related links related not only to that report but to the many exercised-induced, heart-related problems reported Dr. Rowe which then link to a wider scope of other informative links.
[www.femsinspace.com]

Original Report:
Correcting magnesium deficiencies may prolong life.
Rowe WJ.
Clin Interv Aging. 2012;7:51-4. Epub 2012 Feb 16.
Source: Medical University of Ohio at Toledo, Ohio, USA.
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

Jackie

AF is a disease of civilization. Get uncivilized!!
[www.afibbers.org]

The root cause of AF: "The Magnesium Factor"
[www.afibbers.org]

Civilization is the root cause of 21st century illness - including AF
[www.afibbers.org]

diet and the diseases of civilization
[www.afibbers.org]

Fish Story
[www.afibbers.org]

Dirt Poor: Have Fruits and Vegetables Become Less Nutritious?
Scientific American - April 2011 [www.scientificamerican.com]

Excitotoxins: The Taste that Kills
Russell L. Blaylock, MD
Dr. Blaylock, is a nationally recognized board-certified neurosurgeon, health practitioner, author, and lecturer. He attended the Louisiana State University School of Medicine and completed his internship and neurological residency at the Medical University of South Carolina. [www.newsmaxhealth.com]


The Magnesium Factor
Mildred S. Seelig, MD, MPH and Andrea Rosanoff, PhD

The Magnesium Miracle
Carolyn Dean, MD, ND

Magnesium – The Ultimate Heart Medicine
Mark Sircus, AC, OMD

Transdermal Magnesium Therapy
Mark Sircus, AC OMD

Tsco, you may not think you are a conspiracy theorist, but you show all the signs of one.

Afib has been around forever, was considered just a nuisance not that long ago according to many I know who worked for cardiologists!

McHale