Time lapse study of asymptomatic strokes

Video is not specifically related to AF induced strokes, rather a study of old folks already showing signs of dementia. Nevertheless, it provides an important reason to fix AF before small AF-induced strokes accumulate to a significant enough degree to cause early dementia.

[www.the-scientist.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/2015 03:17PM by researcher.

What is the likelihood of an afib sufferer to have asymptomatic strokes? And does age affect this?

Erich the vast majority (around roughly 80%) of Afibbers over time with increasing episodes will increase their burden of 'Silent Cerebral Ischemia' (SCI) or Silent Cerebral Events (SCE) basically two acronyms for the same basic process.

Still, active AFIB is the number one source of these SCI, we have published quiet a few study summaries on these SCI Impact including in the Dec/Jan issue and two others in 2014.

These are not clarified as 'strokes' per se, but they are akin to 'asymptomatic strokes' and increasing evidence strongly supports an increase risk of dementia and Alzheimer's is associated with an increased burden for these SCI/SCE small lesions that individually are considered asymptomatic but collectively over time appear to be anything but benign.

Of course, 'more studies' are needed to confirm a cause and effect relationship here as the conservative answer , but real world common sense and a wealth of growing data suggests the associated link is very strong indeed between increased exposure to SCI and increased likelihood of having later dementia.

Like researcher said, its yet another big reason to do whatever is needed to get AFIB not just somewhat reduced but as close to stamped out for good as one can achieve by whatever collective means that can be recruited to the task.

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/2015 05:24AM by Shannon.

Erichs question was in relations to AF silent induced strokes, this can happen in people without AF as well.

What are the stats for people having had an ablation, no more AF, but later in their life having a stroke?

Liz

Him versify of Utah reported on that and It was in Oct/Nov issue of AFIB Report I believe or Aug/Sept but I think it was the Oct issue Liz, am not at my computer at the moment. But it showed a significant reduction is associated stroke risk
K for former Afibbers after successful ablation on par with the stroke risk of a large control group that were matched by age, sex, BMI who never had AFIB at all. In otherwords, from the comparative two groups it appears that successful ablation reduces stroke risk to the same general level of age and sex matched controls who never have had AFIB...although the AFIB group likely was made up of more higher risk mixed with some low risk Afibbers and the true low risk portion of Afibbers might well have been part of the number. Nevertheless a very encouraging finding.

Shannon

Regardless of whether one has or had Afib, many factors affect brain health and function. Spend time at the website of Daniel Amen, PhD and note his findings using SPECT brain imaging scans… including the effects of various foods and chemicals on brain health and function. The blood viscosity and flow is one issue out of many detrimental influences for many younger people than in a range of late 60’s onward. Certainly very important for anyone with a history of Afib, of course.

Knowing one’s tendency for hypercoaguability is always an extremely important preventive factor but also, so is knowing about the many influences that contribute to thick, sticky blood and stroke risk and MI's.

We all should test regularly those important markers that influence our blood viscosity or clotting tendency factors before something happens as a result of silent inflammation, hyperviscosity, atherosclerosis, AGEs … the advanced glycation end products that result from improper glucose metabolism and oxidative stress influences and so on.

Our doctors should be checking regularly for bruits in area of carotid arteries and abdominal aorta. It’s not uncommon for carotid artery stenosis or partial blockage to contribute to minor ischemic strokes due to lack of blood flow… (major ones as well). (Bruits are distinctive sounds detected by auscultation)… pronounced Brew-ee … carotid artery stenosis or blockage has a distinctive, ‘squeeky sound’…easily identified.


Dr. Amen is a physician, double board certified psychiatrist, teacher and five-time New York Times best-selling author. In this SuperheroYou video, he shows you how to keep your brain as healthy as possible. [www.youtube.com]

Jackie

I think Shannon (don't you hate auto-correct sometimes ) meant to say Utah study out of the Intermountain Health system. They do around 8-900 AF ablations per year so it looks like the a five year consecutive AF ablation cohort. Intermountain Health studies are unique because the habits of Salt Lake City region are relatively narrow compare to US population in general. Bunch, Day and Weiss are top notch guys. Link to study below.

[www.heartrhythmjournal.com]

Ha Researcher, Yea, it was Utah Intermountain I was speaking of, whatever it was I said!!

And YES indeed Auto-correct is the bane of my existence it seems :-) Especially when banging these things out on my I-phone 6+ ( which is nevertheless a real improvement for sure over the postage stamp size screen of my old I-phone 5)

And as a note to everyone here, please forgive my many typos and make an effort to read between the lines when you see a few words or sentences I have written that read like a combination of Swahili and jibberish.

When I have time I try to go back and clean up as many of those posts that I can remember to do so with, but with my entirely full schedule these days without nearly enough hours in the day until we either perfect cloning or a secretary appears out of the ether, I just have to do my best either typing or dictating these replies, often early in the morning or late at night before bed or after waking up, and in either case Auto-correct inevitably jumps in to make mince-meat out of a handful of sentences no matter what I do!

I am trusting that the majority of you can get the drift in any event of what I intended to say without assuming I must have flunked my spelling bee in 3rd grade and never recovered :-) And if I had to proof read everything on the fly, I would never get anything done with the pace of things these days since the website and newsletter fell into my lap.

And I agree with researchers assessment of Utah's Intermountain Arrhythmia center, they have a very solid group there and an excellent AFIB research program. I know Dr. Pete Weiss quite well and he is a very sharp Electrophysiologist and a great guy to-boot doing a lot of both AFIB ablation as well as VT ablation using the Stereotaxis robotic system and those of you in the region considering Intermountain, you would be in good and safe hands with Dr Weiss as well as Drs Bunch and Day, I'm not as familiar with the other EPs in their group as yet.

Thanks for the understanding on my, at times, dyslexic seeming typing everyone!

Shannon



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2015 03:48PM by Shannon.

Shannon you are a BUSY man and we appreciate all that you do here so no worries. Auto correct does make things interesting. Around new years I sent out a FB message about how beautiful Hookipa was on a calm morning and it was auto corrected to "Hookups" and my friends were all wondering what adventure I was on .

Regarding Weiss using Stereotaxis. I didn't realize he was doing that so I had to look it up. Yep sure enough he even talks about it at length in a new youtube video (see link below). He talks about using it mostly for left sided VT and PVC at a rate of about 150 procedures per year. So probably not much time left over AF procedures as VT and PVC ablations are day long affairs typically. That would leave 2 days a week for AF. That would be similar to the arrangements at CPMC with Hongo and at St David's with Burkhardt.

Anyway the video is very informative about how AF procedures are done currently by top notch EPs and about the newest version of the stereotaxis equipment. There is Q&A throughout by doctors watching the video as it was broadcasted so that was very informative too. Looks like the company has done a lot to make magnetics more user friendly and faster. Enjoy.

[www.youtube.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/2015 07:40PM by researcher.

Actually. I just got my yearly physical lab results, and while everything came back "normal" according to the doctors office, some of the numbers that were off seem to relate to some of these "sticky blood" factors.

LIPOPROTEIN-a - 59.3 mg/dL (High)
hsCRP - 3.1 mg/L (High)

are the ones that stick out.

Who should I follow up these results with? my cardiologist?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2015 01:42AM by erich.

Erich, I am not aware of how stickiness is measured. Even blood viscosity is difficult to capture as it is thixotropic and reacts with foreign substance. And then there are different methods of sampling and measurements. A long time ago in my first lab, we had 3 different fancy systems for measuring viscosity. Non-newtonian fluids are not easy in terms of sampling and sample preservation (avoiding air contamination). Blood is like that. Lots of discussions here about blood viscosity and stickiness. Unfortunately, I haven't seen very much science. Maybe there is a way to model it by measuring pure components of blood and then using math but I haven't seen that either.

Erich - Medical practitioners who are oriented to a holistic or natural medicine approach to preventing cardiovascular disease are fully aware of how to test for and treat elevated markers that result in 'thick, sticky blood'... these would be Functional Medicine practitioners, Naturopaths, Integrative Medicine practitioners, Chiropractors and Anti-Aging specialists. You can also work with a Certified Nutritionist who works with a physician to get the test ordered and evaluated.

Each marker in a Cardiovascular Disease Risk Assessment/Factors Test can be managed appropriately... typically with diet and nutritional supplements.

Metametrix and Genova Diagnostics are two reliable labs that offer these comprehensive assessments that are not typically offered by conventional practitioners mainly interested in measuring cholesterol.

You can contact those labs and ask if they have a referral to a practitioner in your area who uses their lab services.

Jackie

Thanks guys!