SFA and heart arrhythmia

(Michael) #1

Thought this was interesting @FrankoBear. I stopped eating straight tallow when my arrhythmia returned. Could be something to this?

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCEP.119.007573

(Geoffrey) #2

Any studies that promote seed oils over animal fats I’m going to find suspect.
Also, since I’m not a rat I’m not too concerned with how a rat responds to anything since our physiology is so different.
Here’s what I know as an AFib’er. Since I have eliminated all sugar and seed oils from my diet and increased my animal fat intake, my heart has had fewer PVC’s. My AFib occurrences are down to 2% and my doctor has had to cut my medication in half.

(KM) #3

Note that the source they’re using to control the dietary saturated fat ingestion is palm oil. (Small face plant from me.) IMO that adds a whole different level of variable, I’m not sure you can extrapolate that all saturated fat from any source has the same effect.

(Edith) #4

Did your arrhythmia stop when you stopped eating the tallow?

(Michael) #5

I tried multiple times to increase my fat to 90% of calories through addition of tallow. Each time after a few weeks heart palpitations and racing would start. It would stop within 48 hours of discontinuing the additional tallow. Not saying that was for sure the problem, but the biochemistry seems to suggest it may have been a possible cause. I dislike the feeling enough that I do not intend to further test, at this time at least.

(Bob M) #6

I wonder if it’s only a correlation, not causation. For instance, you ate less salt because you didn’t salt the tallow whereas you would have salted meat.

I’ve eaten diets very high in saturated fat (ghee + cacao butter for instance), and never got palpitations that I knew of. Did gain weight, though.

(Edith) #7

Just curious: If you were getting 90% of your calories from fat, I’m guessing you were in a deep state of ketosis and therefore not holding on to water and electrolytes. Do you think the palpitations could have been electrolyte related and not necessarily the fat?

(Michael) #8

I am pretty careful with minerals, so I doubt it, but it is possible. I also considered hydration as an issue. I am hardly insisting it was very high fat/tallow, but is certainly near the top of possibilities.

The purpose of this post was to provide the paper to those others who may still suffer from arrhythmia.

(Michael) #9

I do not normally salt anything, including meat. I did however add some salt/minerals when I was eating lots of tallow since I knew I was eating less protein which contains all the minerals. I also supplemented other minerals. I then tried without supplements and still had racing/palpitations. I even thought it was Metformin interaction with coQ10, but then had the issue without any Metformin. Everything lead back to hydration or tallow intake. Of course, as mentioned, I am NOT sure of the cause, but the linked paper does provide a mechanism for my issues.

(Bob M) #10

To be honest, I would’ve stopped reading after this: “Obesity and diets high in saturated fat increase the risk of arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.”

And then certainly would have stopped after this: “We investigated this hypothesis by feeding mice high-fat diets.”

Mice aren’t humans.

I’d have to see a well controlled study of this in humans with EKGs to show that saturated fat causes arrhythmias or long QT or PVCs or whatever you want to measure.

I can pretty much guarantee it’s not true. Why? Because 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. 6 months after diagnosis, I went on a keto diet and have been on one ever since. I had TONS of PVCs at first. Some of those were quelled by the drugs (beta blocker), but I’m sure many more were quelled by not eating carbs or PUFAs.

(M) #11

I am experiencing the same thing. I currently am eating 2 oz bison suet in effort to GAIN weight for surgery. I thought it was the bison liver, but it was so tiny. I’ve stopped the liver but so far am still experiencing the heart issue which came up only after a couple days after starting eating bison fat/liver.

I’m not sure I understand the article though, why exactly would it cause these issues?

#12

reveals a molecular mechanism linking cardiac metabolism to arrhythmia and suggests that NOX2 inhibitors could be a novel therapy for heart rhythm abnormalities caused by cardiac lipid overload

It appears that some parameters on saturated fats (polyunsaturated fats did not have the same effect) may be in play affecting calcium regulation in heart cells through activation of an enzyme. That is interesting. I wonder if human heart cells respond the same way?

It may mean, practically n=1, modulating and moderating dietary saturated fat intake from very high levels to just high levels could reduce arrhythmia episodes. Worth a try.

Thanks for the share @Naghite Michael.

(Michael) #13

Aye @FrankoBear, you got the gist of it, except that they did not look at polyunsaturated fats, just olive oil which is mostly MUFA. Not sure how much pork you eat, but if willing could try a few months of higher pork belly. It is an easy carnivore test with little risk, except to save a few bucks since pork is so much cheaper than beef.

#14

I wonder if the calcium in the mineral mix of a cup of bone broth might be part of the functional antidote?