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Steven Carr

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Summary as at March 2023:
 

This site has been created so that my method or protocol can assist other sufferers of Lone Atrial Fibrillation. My method has the great bonus that its simple dietary changes, whilst eliminating something as otherwise relentless and dangerous as "afib", also deliberately mimic human diet aspects that our bodies evolved throughout history to thrive best on, and it thereby benefits other major underlying health issues and overall life expectancy. 

 

After numerous years of very careful dietary experiments, it is completely clear that the two factors of equal and greatest importance in my successful dietary protocol are as follows: avoiding excess calcium consumption; and maintaining a significant consumption of standard (ie shop-bought) mushroom varieties. There are other dietary adjustments which I found beneficial, and I discuss them in links elsewhere on this site; but, after the discovery of the tremendous combined benefit from those two major factors, benefits from other adjustments appear modest in comparison, so they are only briefly mentioned below in this Summary.

Various common species of mushroom are effective, but the most practical and economical options are any of the many varieties of "Common" or "Table" Mushrooms. Details of the typical daily mushroom consumption are provided further down this page; but, as long as it is combined with suitable restraint of calcium intake (see important details further down this page), it delivers total success in my case as well as a very large "margin for error" in case calcium intake is temporarily increased to a high level.

The level of daily calcium consumption above which ectopic beats begin to occur in my case, and the risk of AF then begins to increase, depends upon adequate mushroom consumption (and the lesser factors mentioned next). As a guide, a total intake around 1000mg/day of calcium gives a 100% result, but see important details within this page.

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For 8 years I fully eliminated ectopic beats and AF with a combination of raised vitamin D and calcium intake far

below 1000mg (as also witnessed in my 91yo father's subsequent similar success against AF), and I also found that increased protein intake and consumption of certain fruits were beneficial. But adequate consumption of mushrooms allows such a greatly larger intake of calcium, regardless of VitD or other factors, that the latter have now been relegated to secondary aspects, so they are discussed only in subsidiary links from this main page. 

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I cannot locate any other reports of complete elimination by a natural dietary method/protocol. My three children, all of whom are medical doctors, strongly endorse my use of this method — having witnessed the superb results.

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I have no other health problems on this dietary protocol (indeed, it is extremely likely to be delivering other very major health benefits — see below in this page), take zero medications at 69yo, and all blood tests always register within the normal ranges. The dramatic elimination of AF has also allowed me and incentivised me to get very fit, with many further beneficial effects noted. Unequivocally, the results are truly wonderful.

"About the author" link; qualifications etc

 

 

Introduction

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The focus of this site is the treatment of Lone Atrial Fibrillation (“LAF”) by means other than medication or surgery. It has arisen because of my own success in totally eliminating a full-blown and completely typical case of this arrhythmia, without medication or surgery. An internationally renowned medical practitioner, extremely surprised by this, then urged me to put the information online, strongly backed by my three children who are also all medical doctors. Whilst the focus of the site is on LAF, it is not excluded that my dietary protocol may be of benefit in some cases of Atrial Fibrillation (“afib” or “AF”) of types other than LAF, but this site is not necessarily suggesting that to be the case. If other LAF sufferers experience and report relief through the method described here, it should be feasible to stimulate formal medical research into the underlying mechanism(s), and to produce improvements in effectiveness and convenience of treatment.

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Over almost nine years, there were 96 individual dietary and lifestyle factors which I systematically varied before I

achieved full control of AF (and then many more subsequently). Most were varied both by increasing the particular factor and, in a fully separate test, decreasing it. Operating from a home environment, and having a light workload, I was free to tackle the variation of all factors in an extremely rigorous and consistent manner. In addition, my science qualifications and generally scientific inclination  (see "About the author" link above)  made it very clear to me what had to be done and how to go about it.

 

If you have found your way to this site, I will assume you are a sufferer of LAF, or are someone very familiar with it, and not waste your time with basics about AF. That is all well covered in many places on the internet. But I will just note four things which are frequently not well emphasised elsewhere, and then push-on to the details of my own case and my successful elimination protocol. (A blue clickable link with background on LAF is at the end of this bracket, but this main page contains all the most important information on my successful treatment method, so it should be fully considered and understood before visiting the less important information in any of the links. LAF background). 

 

1) By definition, in having diagnosed "Lone" AF, a cardiologist can find no cause for the sufferer’s atrial fibrillation. There are many millions with the diagnosis, which conclusively proves that there is at least one unknown but common cause of the condition which is yet to be discovered or recognised by science. UpToDate.com, the medical profession’s leading “bible” for overall summary of absolutely current medical knowledge, acknowledges this certainty by summarising, with typical polite medical understatement: “The factors that precipitate paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF), particularly in patients without apparent structural heart disease, are incompletely understood”. So it is not the tiniest bit implausible that this mystery cause, or these mystery causes, will be found amongst dietary or lifestyle inadequacies which have simply not yet been recognised to be contributing factors.

 

2) In addition to the long-term dangers, sufferers often find the episodes extremely unpleasant, despite the relative lack of external symptoms. Certainly, many victims feel that their condition is not fully able to be “empathised” by others.

 

3) For reasons very well documented, available medical and surgical treatments are far from ideal and carry very real dangers, and this is well recognised and strongly lamented by most medical experts in the fieId. It is also obvious, but should be strongly emphasised, that if any nutritional deficiency or excess can be identified as a contributing factor, then sufferers are much better off correcting that problem — both because of the serious risks of the medicines or surgery but also because it is extremely unlikely that the nutritional deficiency or excess is only harming the sufferer via AF! It is certain to be causing other problems, even if not obvious. For example, afib sufferers have a much higher risk of dementia, which excellent research suggests is not caused by the AF — so that risk is unlikely to be reduced by surgery or medicine even if they do remove the afib! Therefore, correction of the underlying fault by dietary means is absolutely vital if at all possible!

 

4) The graph below highlights the typical course of Paroxysmal (ie: intermittent, or episodic) AF as the afib attacks relentlessly become longer and more frequent after the initial diagnosis. For 171 patients initially suffering from Paroxysmal AF, it shows the progressive decline in the fraction of those patients who remained merely Paroxysmal after several years, ie the fraction who had not, after each number of years, yet deteriorated to Permanent (ie 24/7) AF. Of these 171 subjects, 88 were Paroxysmal Lone AF (“PLAF”) sufferers, whereas 83 had structural heart disease (ie, were also initially Paroxysmal but not Lone AF sufferers). The graph shows that after 10 years only 43% had not then deteriorated to Permanent AF; after 20 years only a mere 10.6% had still not deteriorated to Permanent AF, and any difference between the Lone (PLAF) group and the “structural heart disease” (ie non-Lone) group was very small. It should be noted that all patients were treated with optimum antiarrhythmic drugs as determined by the treating physicians and as varied whenever necessary according to the latter's judgement [1] (all published scientific studies referred to on this website are numbered in blue in square brackets and then listed in full at the end). Clearly, the conventional outlook for paroxysmal afib sufferers, whether "Lone" or non-Lone, is certainly not a good one.

 

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Figure 1. Evolution over time of the proportion of patients remaining in normal sinus heart rhythm, ie the fraction of patients who did not deteriorate to permanent atrial fibrillation over the number of years shown. The year zero represents the initial diagnosis year, and therefore the presumed onset of paroxysmal AF, in all patients studied. Adapted from reference 1: Kato, T., Yamashita, T., Sagara, K., Iinuma, H., & Fu, L. T. (2004). Progressive nature of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Circulation journal: official journal of the Japanese Circulation Society,68(6), 568-572.

 

 

Brief description of my atrial fibrillation

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I was a classic Paroxysmal or Intermittent LAF sufferer.  Here are the details:

 

- First attack: May 2004, aged 50.

- Maximum length of individual attack: 13 hours.

- Typical length of individual attacks: several hours.

- Direction of the change in intervals between attacks (when untreated): ever-decreasing; ie increasing attack frequency.

- Maximum frequency of attacks: every eight days.

 

In addition, ectopic beats, sensed as “missed” or “crowded” beats, could frequently be detected between the actual atrial fibrillation attacks, and these showed an ever-increasing prevalence overall, reaching a maximum of well over 1,000 per day. Possibly due to a slim build, all ectopic beats and all AF attacks were always highly symptomatic to me. That is, they were very noticeably apparent. Twentyfour-hour Holter monitoring verified this fact — the cardiologist specifically noted that his request for me to manually diarise all self-detected heartbeat irregularities, immediately that I detected each of them, had verified that I had correctly recognised every one of the ectopic beats which the Holter monitor had shown to occur during waking hours (it was a period of much lower abundance than the maximum referred to above). Although unpleasant, being highly-symptomatic was probably a great assistance in eventually being able to reliably determine which dietary factors opposed or promoted the irregularities!

 

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What was attempted to deal with the problem?

 

As ectopic beats became more frequent, I began to seek any and every dietary and lifestyle change which could conceivably have a bearing on the problem. This hunt began after just my second atrial fibrillation attack.

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Over almost nine years there were 96 individual dietary and lifestyle factors which I systematically varied before I achieved full control of AF. Initially, and then for 8 subsequent years, this was achieved using a combination of much lower calcium intake and higher vitamin D levels. After achieving success, whenever I made further dietary changes (which were numerous) I always continued to rigorously assess any effects on ectopic beats using the same approach as previously.

 

My approach was to vary only one factor at a time, and to allow that variation typically two weeks to see if any reduction or increase of ectopic beats occurred. I had noticed early on that this time period was adequate to identify changes in the frequency of ectopics which resulted from the first two effective factors that I identified (ie the calcium and vitamin D, clarified in more detail below) and I considered that the long-term time constraints involved in sequentially testing many factors therefore made this a suitable duration over which to run each individual test. I typically adhered to an absolutely fixed diet and daily regime, in relation to all other factors, during the two-week period in which the one “target” factor was being varied. Of course, due to the potentially huge number of interactions between factors, a considerable amount of  “backtracking” occurred, where I would retest some factor, let us call it “X”, but, on the second occasion, specifically in conjunction with factor “Y” which had not previously been employed when “X” was first tested.

 

It is worth repeating that my adherence to every one of the many approaches that I tested was extremely rigorous and consistent: I was absolutely determined to find a solution and to avoid at all costs the often undesirable and frequently inadequate outcomes of either an ablation operation or of currently existing medications (more here). As a result, I have not had any surgical intervention or taken arrhythmia-related medications.

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Features of LAF which indicate that many (all?) cases have an underlying, age-progressive, dietary (“biochemical” or “metabolic”) imbalance as their cause, as yet unidentified by medical science, are given here. It was that high likelihood, which to me is now a certainty following my own success, that provided the impetus for the multi-year determined effort.

 

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My successful protocol

 

Within months of the first attack, when I took a small dose of a calcium-carbonate antacid for indigestion, I noticed that although the calcium diminished ectopic beats in the short term (the period from 40 minutes to a couple of hours), any sustained increase in daily calcium intake worsened ectopic frequency overall — and the frequency of atrial fibrillation attacks. With further experimentation, it was relatively easy to isolate the effect only to the calcium component alone and not any other components of an antacid (or of any other components of any other calcium source) by varying the antacid employed and by trying various calcium and other supplements — thereby separately testing both the cations (eg calcium, magnesium, aluminium, potassium, sodium, iron, zinc) and the anions (carbonate, bicarbonate, hydroxyapatite, lactate, orotate, citrate, etc). The adverse effect was clearly and strongly due to the calcium alone.

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Reducing total daily calcium intake thus became my first breakthrough in the quest to eliminate my atrial fibrillation. However, I found that to fully eliminate AF attacks it was also necessary to increase vitamin D, usually with a supplement, toward a blood test reading ("serum vitamin D") closer to the level that vitamin D naturally plateaus at in all humans who obtain plenty of sun exposure. (It is scientifically very well known that Vitamin D levels are critical to the body in managing its serum calcium levels, so there is a definite, logical, direct connection there!). And beyond eliminating the actual AF attacks, to reduce all ectopic beats to zero I later discovered that some other dietary changes were also beneficial.

Using that combination of techniques (reduced daily calcium intake; maintaining serum vitamin D around the natural sun-exposure plateau-level; and, less-importantly, a couple of other dietary adjustments), I then successfully avoided (eliminated) AF and ectopic beats for 8 years. Details of these methods and gradual adjustments.are provided here.

However, for that method to be constantly successful, I found that it was necessary to greatly reduce total daily calcium intake. Although blood tests and bone-density tests showed that this was perfectly safe at the natural (but high compared to most people) serum vitamin D levels which I maintain (indeed, such calcium and vitamin D levels have been entirely natural levels throughout human history, as explained here), reducing one's calcium intake requires consistent attention in modern society which is swamped with dairy foods and where even bread and flour routinely contain added calcium!

Which is why the following discovery of a successful approach allowing much higher calcium intake is a huge step forward!

Throughout those 8 years of total success, I continued to occasionally experiment with further dietary tweaks (largely from a general health-conscious perspective) — but always using the complete absence of ectopic beats as my guide-star: if the slightest hint of ectopic beats began to reappear, that was clear warning of an adverse dietary change.

At the start of 2021, when I trialled mushroom consumption for part of my daily protein intake, I noticed that my "safety margin" for raising calcium intake seemed to have increased, and I reported that in an "Update" on this website in May '21.

Since that date I have spent the last two years testing and checking, resulting in what is basically a wonderful upshot: as long as a substantial daily mushroom intake is maintained (details below), I can now utilise greatly increased daily intakes of calcium before any signs of ectopic beats re-emerge. Furthermore, and unlike previously, this is the case regardless of the levels at which I maintain my serum vitamin D, at least up to the natural "plateau" level achievable by sun exposure (there is no point to test above that level, and I normally keep my serum vitamin D around that plateau level).

Of course, edible mushroom species are some of the most natural foods for any human to eat, having been part of all humans' diets throughout the entirety of human existence — unlike, say, grains (~10,000 years) or dairy (maximum of 5,000 years but not prevalent until about 1000 years ago even in Europe [2]). So there are no risks from even very high consumption of shop-bought mushrooms!

Although there are other possibilities, at least five characteristics of mushrooms each suggest themselves as a highly plausible explanation for the dramatic benefit in eliminating AF and ectopics (if combined with moderate calcium intake):

A) Mushrooms have an extremely high potassium to calcium ratio, essentially the highest of all vegetables, and some other AF sufferers do report modest benefit from increasing their potassium intake. Although potassium supplements never yielded any detectable benefit to me, I do not exclude this explanation — because digestive processing and absorption of various nutrients can depend considerably on the food matrix of the nutrient, and so there certainly could be some difference in effect between potassium in mushrooms as opposed to supplements.

B) A promising line of enquiry lies in the following. Recent fundamental research [eg 3] has identified, out of all foods, "mushrooms as being uniquely high in both" Glutathione and Ergothioneine. Glutathione is "considered the major intracellular antioxidant in nearly all organisms and has additional functions, including ... ", and "plays a critical role as the master antioxidant in mammalian cells and tissues". Ergothioneine is even more intriguing and promising! It is likely to have (in a yet to be determined way) "significance in human health due to the presence of a dedicated transporter in many tissues" (such specifically-dedicated transporters are not present for many nutrients, so it must definitely have as yet unkown important health implications), and, completely uniquely, acts as a powerful antioxidant within the mitochondria which are present in all cells (acting as the cells' "powerhouses"), where no other antioxidants can penetrate. On the basis of these very recent and striking discoveries alone, it is fully justified to state that mushrooms should be a significant part of everyone's diet (afibber or not) — as of course they always were for literally millions of years, which itself is a major clue!

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C) Mushrooms also have amongst the highest levels of various polyamines like spermidine, and certainly the highest levels of all foods which are Palaeo/Paleo, ie consumed by all humans for millions of years (ie unlike foods eaten only much more recently such as grains, ~10,000 years, and dairy, max 5,000 years but in any widespread quantity only 1,000 years [2]). Spermidine and other polyamines are another category of highly biologically active compounds which are under very active scientific investigation for their full range of effects, but are already strongly implicated in fundamental and vital processes such as lipid metabolism; inflammation reduction; regulation of cell growth and appropriate cell death (autophagy); and have literally been found to reduce aging and prolong lifespan in all the standard medical-science model organisms of yeast, fruit flies, worms and mice and even in lab-studied human immune cells. In mice, spermidine specifically reduces aging in the heart.

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D) Mushrooms are also very high in tryptophan and indoles from which the body produces melatonin and which are used by gut bacteria to produce a host of other highly bioactive compounds now known to have a wide variety of potent effects.

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E) The distinctive form of beta-glucan dietary fibre found in mushrooms appears to be the most powerful and productive prebiotic known! [eg 4,5,6,7] By strongly influencing a person's gut microbiota for the better, such prebiotics are now known to have a massive effect on all sorts of biological outcomes.

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So the possibility of a dramatic effect on AF does not seem the tiniest bit implausible for any of the factors above, or from probably numerous other distinctive ingredients in what is, after all, a basic and universal part of all natural human diets but an entirely different food category from the standard 5 food groups that make up nearly all of modern diets!

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Concluding comments

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I have now been free of atrial fibrillation and ectopic beats for over 10 years, while consuming nothing other than a very realistically Palaeo/Paleo balanced diet (with many other likely health benefits) and while increasing my fitness to three vigorous multi-kilometre running sessions per week plus two strength and sprinting sessions per week, as a 69-year-old,

and all running and other exercise is now much more vigorous than at 61yo (approximating levels last seen in my late '20's, with many further beneficial effects noted). This level of exercise is something that was previously impossible in terms of atrial fibrillation risk! I have no other health problems on this dietary protocol, take zero medications, and all blood tests always register within normal ranges.

 

It is impossible to over-emphasise how dramatic the improvement has been. It is relevant to add that our three children, all of whom are medical doctors, are amazed by the outcome they have witnessed first-hand, and then witnessed again, later, with my father (91yo in Feb 2023) who was also an AF sufferer, considering what they are taught in medical school about the inevitably one-way, irreversibly downhill path of lone atrial fibrillation (as graphically highlighted in Fig 1, above!)

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It is also very pleasing that the diet and exercise levels closely reflect that which would have been experienced by our ancestors for hundreds of millennia, providing very great comfort that my diet protocol is a method which genuinely provides a "natural" correction to the problems underlying PLAF.

 

Apart from this natural protocol's requirements to maintain a steady intake of mushrooms and to keep calcium intake slightly restrained (but entirely adequate and much higher than the vast majority of the world's population), great flexibility in all other dietary components is perfectly acceptable and has no adverse atrial fibrillation effects. Complete elimination of a very well-advanced and absolutely archetypal case of lone atrial fibrillation has therefore been achieved on nothing more than a very well balanced diet! I have not been able to locate any similar reports anywhere. Since the characteristics of the case were so absolutely typical for lone AF, and since the course of the condition was so well-advanced and the attacks and ectopic beats were so strongly developed, it seems very likely that the information will be of assistance to others. In addition, the successful repeated testing of the sharply and decisively reversible dosage effects of calcium, mushrooms (and to a lesser extent vitamin D) should provide strong clues for researchers to pursue re the underlying cause(s) of LAF, and considerable confidence that there is or are some fundamental, underlying metabolic mechanism(s) as yet undescribed in medicine (which my diet protocol is directly manipulating). Some connection to calcium homeostasis is clearly apparent (and at the cellular level, mechanisms are already known for adverse effects of disturbed calcium metabolism on cardiac contractions and rhythms [eg 8,9,10].)

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After many years of strict dietary experimentation, almost 19 years since the first attack, and being extremely happy with my current treatment method and all its health outcomes, further experiments are not my own priority, but reports by other sufferers of positive responses to the factors highlighted here would ensure that at some point professional researchers would take interest, with likely subsequent gains in medical treatment of LAF. 

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Details of current diet

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On the basis that my diet, because of its extreme effectiveness, now seems to be well settled for the long haul, below is a summary of the two critical factors in it (described in the next two paragraphs), followed by other prominent aspects of it — in case anyone is interested in the latter or believes that there must be some other factor(s) at work beyond the critical two that I have identified; but rigorous testing leaves me confident that is not the case, at least to any remotely similar extent.

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Calcium : Total "routine" daily calcium intake is now usually around 1500mg. This has been calculated from the USDA "FoodData Central" website, based on my "routine" foods consumption. Minor increases above this level do not cause problems, but normally I avoid higher calcium intake. This mostly means avoiding consistent intake of dairy foods. When I do have a high-calcium food, I sometimes reduce other calcium-containing foods that day.

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Mushrooms : I currently consume 500 grams to 1000 grams of mushrooms a day, as a soup or puree with vegetables and/or fruits, and cold (ie "gazpacho" style) or hot, as desired. I have previously used 500 grams every day for a year, restraining my calcium intake to 1000mg/day, with total elimination of ectopics and, of course, AF. But the trade-off is simple : more mushroom intake, within reason, allows more calcium intake within reason, without ectopic beats or AF reappearing. As outlined in the Introduction, it is extremely likely that if mushrooms (plus moderated calcium intake)

eliminate something as pernicious and normally irreversible as afib then they are providing other major health benefits too; so, having proved that the method works 100%, and given that mushrooms are very pleasant and definitely contain many scarce and important nutrients as outlined above, I now choose to regularly consume more than 500gms — and to also thereby be more relaxed about calcium intake! The easiest, most practical and economical to buy and process are everyday "Common or Table" mushrooms (technically Agaricus bisporus) regardless of their colour, shape, size or maturity (based upon which, shops give them many different retail names!). But I have also used other much less common species. Some of the latter have much higher contents of ergothioneine, but their inconvenience and — to my palate — inferior flavours compared to common mushrooms, make them not worth the fuss or cost for routine consumption. I lightly cook the mushrooms (usually by microwaving; and consuming the exuded liquid also), but only because of the unsanitary conditions in which they are grown, and I believe it completely unlikely they would be any less effective raw. Once cooked, I find the easiest way to consume substantial amounts is usually to puree them in a blender as described above. Mushrooms are highly nutritious, yet very low-calorie and filling, and are therefore a great aid to limiting consumption of less healthy foods, so they are a very worthwhile item to add in large quantity to your food anyway.

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I typically consume about 100 grams of "high-grade" protein from lean meat, poultry and seafood every day. These are sources of high-grade (ie readily assimilated) protein. I found that the equivalent amount of plant protein (low-grade protein), from whatever source, was not optimum for strength or minor wound-healing etc with increasing age.

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Most of my other routine foods consist of unprocessed fruits and vegetables. These currently always include a variety of dark fruits, including cranberries and invariably blueberries, black plums, black grapes, tomato. [The general benefits of dark fruits are now well recognised, and I have also seen research indicating their specific merit if one is consuming significant quantities of meat. All very Palaeo/Paleo of course.]

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I consume (in the routine foods) little fat and no added sugar, but never detected any effects on afib or ectopics related to those items. I don't exclude any foods entirely, and obviously all of the aspects above are relaxed or added to for variety or when socialising.

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Because there may be other health benefits from it, I aim to hold my blood serum vitamin D level around 160 nmol/L all year (~64 ng/mL) by supplementing with five 5,000iu capsules of D3 per week for much of the year and with four 5,000iu capsules per week in summer. But since discovering the tremendous effects of the calcium/mushroom interaction I have also had 100% success while allowing my serum VitD to persist for months at 120nmol/L (~48ng/ml). So this appears to be a much less important factor once one is using the calcium/mushroom interaction. But it is still important not to significantly exceed the natural 160 nmol/L "solar saturation" plateau level (~64 ng/mL) because doing so further increases the proportion of calcium which is absorbed into the bloodstream (of whatever calcium amount one ingests in total), which opposes one's attempt to moderate calcium intake and may cause the recurrence of ectopics (and thus risk AF)!

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I take no medications and no supplements beyond the vitamin D described above, other than a daily vitamin K1/K2.

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Avoiding excess calcium consumption sometimes requires some knowledge of foods with significant calcium content, beyond dairy foods alone. Unfortunately, many processed foods are now deliberately calcium-enriched, so that can be one problem. As an example, this extends to standard packaged flours! Here in Australia, only the cheapest, "Store Brand" varieties are not "enriched"! In fact, it is worth mentioning that it may be difficult to restrain one's calcium consumption to 1000mg/day if one eats much processed food, although it would always be possible if one fully eliminates dairy foods.

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So a brief summary is that I eat a cross section of foods which all our ancestors ate for hundreds of thousands of years to millions of years, and which we are therefore fully genetically adapted to. I minimise consumption of foods like dairy which have only been available to us for a few thousand years, and which we are therefore not fully genetically adapted to — as unequivocally proven by such a common health problem as lactose intolerance. In the process, I consume the sort of total calcium intake, and all other nutrient intakes, that would have been typical of the great majority of humans throughout human history; indeed, before dairying or supplements, it would have been totally impossible to exceed my current calcium intake without deliberately eating limestone, shells or actual bone (ie not just bone marrow). I am enjoying enormous health benefits from this approach, and I especially have a hopeful attitude about it because so many of the Western diseases of aging also have as a major contributing factor some calcification of the vasculature, which it is very hard to believe has a cause other than being at least partially related to excess calcium intake. In that case, my previous curse of AF and years of struggle against it will turn into something which I never could possibly have then believed — a blessing in disguise (in terms of major health benefits beyond AF). And that is now, very cheeringly, literally how I see things.

                                               

Recent high-quality research has now proven unequivocally that milk consumption was not common in Europe even 3,000 years ago and was not substantial in Europe until just 1,000 years ago.[2]  The period since is nowhere near a long enough duration for evolution to have ensured that all those whose health is damaged by high calcium consumption have yet been "weeded from the gene pool" by the early (ie pre-breeding) deaths of people who carry calcium-sensitive afib genes, especially when this ailment, Lone Afib, normally only occurs well after the main breeding ages of the victims (thus ensuring that their "Afib genes" pass at normal rates of success to the next generation). So this latest research is essentially conclusive evidence that large numbers of people are not genetically suited to consume the very large intakes of calcium which are now common in Western societies. Without deliberately eating shells, limestone or actual bone (not just the marrow), natural calcium intake from natural foods (ie pre-dairying) could never reach 1000mg/day.

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                           REFERENCES NUMBERED IN THE TEXT ABOVE

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[1] Kato, T., Yamashita, T., Sagara, K., Iinuma, H., & Fu, L. T. (2004). Progressive nature of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation. Circulation journal: official journal of the Japanese Circulation Society,68(6), 568-572.

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[2] Burger, J., Link, V., Blocher, J., Thomas, M.G., Veeramah, K.R., Wegmann, D., et al. (2020). Low Prevalence of Lactase Persistence in Bronze Age Europe Indicates Ongoing Strong Selection over the Last 3,000 Years. Current Biol. 2020 Nov 2;30(21):4307-4315

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[3] Kalaras, M. D., Richie, J. P., Calcagnotto, A., & Beelman, R. B. (2017). Mushrooms: A rich source of the antioxidants ergothioneine and glutathione. Food Chemistry, 233, 429–433.

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[4] Poeker, S.A., Geirnaert, A., Berchtold, L. et al. (2018). Understanding the prebiotic potential of different dietary fibers using an in vitro continuous adult fermentation model (PolyFermS). Sci Rep 8, 4318 

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[5] Thornthan Sawangwan, Wanwipa Wansanit, Lalita Pattani, Chanai Noysang, (2018). Study of prebiotic properties from edible mushroom extraction, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Volume 52, Issue 6, 519-524

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[6] Nowak, R., Nowacka-Jechalke, N., Juda, M. et al. (2018). The preliminary study of prebiotic potential of Polish wild mushroom polysaccharides: the stimulation effect on Lactobacillus strains growth. Eur J Nutr 57, 1511–1521.

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[7] El-Maradny, Yousra & El-Fakharany, Esmail. (2021). Prebiotic Properties and Antioxidant Effect of Crude and Polysaccharide Edible Mushroom Extracts. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21146.57280.

 

[8] Morgan, J. P. (1991). Abnormal intracellular modulation of calcium as a major cause of cardiac contractile dysfunction. New England Journal of Medicine,325(9), 625-632.

 

[9] Jiang, D., Xiao, B., Yang, D., Wang, R., Choi, P., Zhang, L., ... & Chen, S. W. (2004). RyR2 mutations linked to ventricular tachycardia and sudden death reduce the threshold for store-overload-induced Ca2+ release (SOICR). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101(35), 13062-13067.

 

[10] Chelu, M. G., & Wehrens, X. H. T. (2007). Sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium leak and cardiac arrhythmias. Biochemical Society Transactions, 35(5), 952-956.