oxidative stress and afib

Dr Montgomery seems to be getting to the cause? Wonder if anyone can enlighten/comment a bit more? Please listen for a few minutes from 13 minutes on:
[www.youtube.com]

I personally believe we can do a lot more through diet, holistic, stress management, and yes, herbal treatments to improve and in many cases “cure” our ailments. We probably can manage Afib better too through some techniques. If someone has found the answer, this is the pace to share it! As a family, we have had 4 siblings out of 5 with Afib, our father, his two sisters, several of their children all with Afib. It seems so obviously genetic that maybe we do need drug or surgical interventions to keep it in check. 2 brothers have had a total of 9 or 10 ablations and one has had 40 cardioversions. So, yes, I believe in everything the Dr says and am doing my best to manage with supplements, yoga, exercise, etc. And always hoping for the best.

LoisA you are confirming the genetic underlying cause. Wondering what can we do epigenetically to prevent/minimize our AF burden?

Dr Greger's presentation does confirm along the lines of oxidative stress and diet. The high carb diet is interesting but i suppose applies only if one is not pre-diabetic according to Dr Bernstein's and/or Dr Ford Brewer's definition - that is having a healthy (meaning low) insulin peak after a glucose tolerance test done over 3/4 hours Generally keeping blood glucose levels at 83mg/dl with not high (100 or so???) post prandial spikes.
[nutritionfacts.org]

My experience. I was on a whole food plant based diet for 14 years when I had my first afib episode 18 years ago. It was high carb, low fat. I purchased my first glucometer two years later in 2006. While my A1C was OK, at 5.2%, my blood glucose excursions after consuming high quantities of carbs were high and sub optimal. From what I now know, my insulin response was far from perfect. I tried to modify my diet to minimize post prandial blood glucose elevations. It was challenging to do this, keeping the diet vegan. After a while I decided to pitch the vegan concept and keto adapted, adding in animal protein in 2009. My glucose response is much better now, though not perfect. I use Zone 2 exercise after meals as a non-insulin dependent approach to moderating glucose spikes when they occur. A recent two-week stint with a continuous glucose monitor yielded an average two week glucose of 89 mg/dL (4.9 mmol/L). An A1C from around that time yielded 4.9%. My diet is now moderately low carb pescatarian, with a lot of whole plant foods.

Quote
GeorgeN
. My diet is now moderately low carb pescatarian, with a lot of whole plant foods.

how low carb? we have been having discussions in the house. Husband and I were vegan for a year. It helped a problem he had. I don't think it helped me except I got more plant foods in me (and cholesterol dropped a bit from 230 to 208). . I could not loose weight at all. (I'm not obese but am overweight.. menopause etc..) I stopped much of the carbs, added animal protein, lost 5 lbs without trying hard. And I feel better. We have had some discussion on fats. I'm kinda pro fat (good fat). But I also wish beans agreed with me because I do think they played a role in the cholesterol. IDK we are just trying to re-define our diets here. We belong to a farm share this summer which is pretty cool and makes us eat more veggies but we are still on the fence with high/low fat.. how low in carbs.. etc.I realize there are many opinions on this but curious for you George as I thought you were more keto vs. low carb. I am sure you have talked about it so feel free just to direct me to a previous post. thanks

Intermittent fasting (IF in the 'food world') and watching carb intake have done the best by me. I lost 11kg in three months by reducing the insulin response, partly by reducing carbs to under 100gm/day, but also by fasting for up to 24 hours. The idea is to teach your body 'fat adaptation through autolysis', or literally teaching your body to begin to use its own adipose deposits for conversion in gluco-neogenisis. Those who fast routinely can find their AIC perfectly/near normal even when they almost completely eliminate carbs of any kind from their diets. This is only possible if the liver releases some of its own supply, but when that is gone, the body learns to form its own serum glucose (which the brain needs to function). While this is happening, you're going to be in a calorie deficit and will start to lose weight.

At some point, you can find a stasis where you don't gain or lose weight, and that will be because you are burning what your body can provide from your food/drink. First, though, you must train yourself to freely adapt to the changing circumstances brought on by occasional fasting, and by the at I mean at least twice a week, and never for less than 16 hours after last eating.

You might think that it is impossible to go 24 hours, even a couple of days, without a meal. Trust me, it's no picnic the first time or two, but your body will learn, and soon you'll find that, about six hours after your last meal, you'll feel hungry. That lasts about 90 minutes (but you distract yourself by going for a walk, or a bike ride...), and before you know it, you're no longer hungry. That's because your body has begun to scavenge from its own fat deposits.

Really what you want to do is to avoid insulinic responses to blood sugars. Insulin is a storage hormone; it forces adipoceles to accept more and more stored calories. To avoid this, and possibly metabolic syndrome if you end up 20kg overweight or worse, don't provide the blood sugars!!! So, you won't need to try keto diets, but you should eat more plant and animal products, just not those with sugars and starches, or laden with man-made nitrites and so on.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2022 10:27PM by gloaming.

A big BG spike set up an AF episode for me yesterday, that's for certain I should know better. The flesh is weak...

Appreciate your replies!

When i Listened to Dr Greger i was thinking of George's experience. Obviously Dr Greger is pushing a barrow and might only be partly right - the inflammation and oxidative burden???

Quote
bettylou4488

. My diet is now moderately low carb pescatarian, with a lot of whole plant foods.

how low carb? we have been having discussions in the house. Husband and I were vegan for a year. It helped a problem he had. I don't think it helped me except I got more plant foods in me (and cholesterol dropped a bit from 230 to 208). . I could not loose weight at all. (I'm not obese but am overweight.. menopause etc..) I stopped much of the carbs, added animal protein, lost 5 lbs without trying hard. And I feel better. We have had some discussion on fats. I'm kinda pro fat (good fat). But I also wish beans agreed with me because I do think they played a role in the cholesterol. IDK we are just trying to re-define our diets here. We belong to a farm share this summer which is pretty cool and makes us eat more veggies but we are still on the fence with high/low fat.. how low in carbs.. etc.I realize there are many opinions on this but curious for you George as I thought you were more keto vs. low carb. I am sure you have talked about it so feel free just to direct me to a previous post. thanks

I keto adapted in 2009. To adapt I did it the Atkins way: max 20 g carbs/day. Took a couple of weeks to adapt (and I've maintained adaptation since). I now think there are less painful ways to adapt, without just driving off the cliff till the parachute (ketone adaptation) opens. After that, for quite a while didn't really measure macros, but was pretty low carb. In the last 8 or so years, I eat a lot of low lectin veggies and mostly fish/shellfish. Recently removed eggs as tested as sensitive to them. Previously did that with dairy for the same reason. Even A2 dairy materially raises my IL-16 level (a cytokine inflammatory marker). If my blood sugar responses are good, I'll go up to 200 g/day carbs, including resistant starches. If they aren't as happy, I'll drop back to 80-100 g/day, of which ~50+ are fiber. I've done time restricted eating for many years. It is always a minimum fast of 16 hours/day, and can extend to 24 or mult-day. As for beans, have you tried soaking for several passes & throwing away the water, then pressure cooking them? My doc says that pressure cooking them deactivates the lectins. Even on the morning after higher carb days, I will test some betahydroxbuterate on a fingerstick blood test. I also will do ~25 minutes of Zone 2 (see second paragraph here: [www.afibbers.org] ) level walking after my evening meal if my blood sugar is > 100 mg/dL (5.6mmol/L). This will acutely bring it down. I've found that wearing my KAATSU BFR bands on cycle mode as I walk lowers the heart rate needed for the same blood sugar effect. I commonly go out with some combination of a 50-60# climbing pack (i.e. "rucking"), an exercise breathing mask (restricting inflow and accumulating CO2 to increase CO2 tolerance), the KAATSU bands and Heavy Hands hand weights.

My eating times have included 5 years of one meal a day, a period of water fasting 5 consecutive days out of 14 for 19 cycles, many 3-7 day water fasts and so on.

I don't advise others follow my lead. Keto adaptation can cause electrolyte disruption and did cause one episode while I was adapting. I offered to coach one afibber friend (a childhood friend), and he said I had a "6 sigma lifestyle" and he had no interest.