Heart Rate Variability and Nutrition: How Bad Fats Can Disrupt the Rhythms of Your Heart!

Although it has been known that “bad” fats will clog arteries, it is only just coming to light that:

• Foods rich in trans fats and hydrogenated oils can also interrupt the electricity of the heart itself, causing arrhythmia.

• "These bad fats don't just clog your arteries, they are stored in your heart cells, and that can affect how the heart beats. This can really worsen the condition of a patient suffering a heart attack."

• The trans and hydrogenated fats stored in the cells of the heart, “can actually cause sudden cardiac death through arrhythmias during a heart attack,” according to this new research of heart rate variability and nutrition. Why?

• A heart attack will be more damaging because of the cellular changes made by the "BAD FATS!"

Heart Rate Variability and Nutrition: Fat Buildup

His research explains this new linking of heart variability and nutrition as follows:

• Our heart uses fat as an energy source to beat more than 100,000 times a day. But if bad fats are stored in the heart this causes an excessive build up of calcium in the cells of the heart.

• In normal hearts, calcium is pumped in and out of the heart each second with each wave of electricity.

• But in a heart filled with too much trans and harmful fats, there is a build up of calcium, and these abnormally high calcium levels disrupt the heart’s electrical flow and can cause arrhythmia -- abnormal rhythms –- as well as hyper contractions, where electrical signals are firing when they shouldn’t be.

• In particular, bad fats interfere with a protein called the sodium-calcium exchanger. "Its role is to pump calcium out," Dr. Light said. "But during a heart attack, it pumps calcium in."

• The more calcium builds up in the heart, the worse the heart attack and the harder it will be for the patient to recover, according to the research.

This new linking of heart rate variability and nutrition of fats, according to Dr. Light, will hopefully encourages the public to avoid foods rich in trans fats and hydrogenated oils,(COOKIES, BAKED GOODS, DONUTS, CRACKERS) turning instead to the monounsaturated fats of olive oil, avocados and omega rich oils in fish and nuts that are beneficial for heart health.

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Heart Surgery and Post Operative Nutrition

For example, Dr. Light said, patients scheduled for heart surgery could be advised to cut out all trans fats for a few weeks before the operation as a way of reducing the risk of a poor outcome.

Dr. Light said this troubling effect on the sodium-calcium exchanger was not seen with mono unsaturated fats such as olive oil.

• AVOID BAD FATS: Those that are solid or semi-solid, such as margarine and partially hydrogenated oils, are BAD FATS.

He said the research also has implications for the impact of trans fats on diabetes and hypertension, because similar mechanisms are at work.

• TRANS FATS -- the artificial partly hydrogenated oils made to give food a creamy texture and increase its shelf life.

IT TAKES SPECIAL EFFORT TO AVOID TRANS FATS:

• Virtually every fast-food or family restaurant French fry is cooked in trans fat-filled grease. Almost half of all CEREALS, both cold and hot, contain it, according to the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA. So do 70 percent of cake mixes, 75 percent of CHIPS and other salty SNACKS, 80 percent of frozen breakfast foods like WAFFLES, and 95 percent of COOKIES.

• Even products people buy when they want to eat healthier -- granola, POWER BARS and low-fat COOKIES and CRACKERS -- are often made with partially HYDROGENATED vegetable oil. During a recent informal survey of 140 varieties of CRACKERS on a typical supermarket shelf, only three brands had no partially HYDROGENATED oil.

• Avoid the foods that typically have TRANS FATS -- baked goods such as CAKES, TARTS, COOKIES, DONUTS, FRIES, and a wide variety of PROCESSED foods.

• Watch carefully, because this “PHANTOM FAT” can be well hidden in your cereal bowl. It's the bad boy in your bag of MICROWAVE POPCORN. It lurks in those “low-fat COOKIES” and even in ENERGY BARS.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the industry to change, however, because for the most part they have not yet found healthy substitutes.

• GOOD FATS such as fish oils, nuts, avocados and olive oil do not have the same bad effect on the heart’s electrical rhythms. So if you want to avoid taking drugs for arrhythmia, this new heart rate variability and nutrition connection should be good news!

Heart Rate Variability and Nutrition: Salt - Potassium Balance

Heart rate variability and nutrition have been linked for a long time – we all know to lower our salt intake for heart problems, but there is more to it...

Arrhythmias are also due to SALT intake in the absence of adequate POTASSIUM.

• It is not so much the salt intake as the proper SODIUM/POTASSIUM ratio in the blood:

Electrolyte imbalances in the blood are caused by our typically eating too much sodium – salt, with NOT ENOUGH POTASSIUM to balance the electrolytes needed.

• Good potassium sources are BANANAS, ORANGE JUICE, POTATOES, ALMONDS, AND WHOLE MILK.

Many people have a potassium/sodium imbalance due to not enough potassium, and this imbalance that is linked to arrhythmia and heart disease.

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Ask For Recommendations for Heart Health Supplements:

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Heart Rate Variability and Nutrition: New Research Links Trans Fats and Arrhythmia, Heart Arrhythmia, Hyper-Contractions, and Abnormal Rhythms

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