eat one's heart out (third-person singular simple present eats one's heart out, present participle eating one's heart out, simple past ate one's heart out, past participle eaten one's heart out)
Eating My Heart Out
Normally, your heart beats between 60 and 100 times a minute. Eating specific foods or drinking certain beverages can raise your heart rate to above 100, creating a feeling that your heart is fluttering, racing or skipping a beat.
Modifying what you eat and drink might not be enough to fully prevent atrial fibrillation, but it can help lower your risk. Eating a heart healthy diet can also prevent high blood pressure, high cholesterol and even diabetes. Talk to your Mercy doctor to develop a strategy that will keep your heart beating at the right pace for you.
You have a higher risk of heart disease if you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes or an unhealthy diet. Doctors recommend a nutritious diet, along with physical activity and not smoking, to help prevent heart disease.
A heart-healthy diet focuses on choices that lower blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol. Many experts point to the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. It can help lower your blood pressure and reduce your chance of a heart attack or stroke. Here are a few simple ways to get started:
A heart palpitation is when it feels like your heart skipped a beat or had an extra beat. It may also feel like a fluttering or pounding in the chest or neck and can accompany a sudden increase in your heart rate.
A 2017 review of energy drink use in the United States reported that out of 496 college students who consumed energy drinks in the last month, 19 percent experienced heart palpitations. However, because there are a range of ingredients in these drinks, researchers were unable to draw definite links between caffeine and palpitations.
A 2016 study suggested that caffeine likely does not cause palpitations. In fact, the researchers proposed that some types of caffeine can improve your heart health. A further 2018 study similarly found no basis for linking caffeine intake and irregular heart rhythms.
If your palpitations are a serious issue, your doctor will likely prescribe a beta-blocker or calcium channel blocker. These are antiarrhythmic drugs. They keep your heart rate even and regular by improving blood flow throughout your body.
Significant changes in your hormones can cause palpitations, too. Going through a menstrual cycle, pregnancy, or menopause affects your hormone levels, and these changes can have a noticeable effect on your heart rate.
Heart palpitations usually stop after a few seconds once your heart rate returns to normal. In some cases, your heart might continue to beat erratically for minutes or more. You might feel pain in your chest and even pass out.
Talk with a doctor about your heart palpitations and getting evaluated for heart conditions. If tests show your palpitations are not due to an underlying medical condition, you may not need medical treatment. If you have palpitations often, try to figure out what foods or activities trigger them.
Most of the time, you're probably not paying any attention to your heartbeat. Sure, you know that your heart is constantly pumping blood throughout your body. You may even track heart rate, along with other vitals, through an Apple Watch or Fitbit. But you're probably not physically feeling the beat of your heart or giving it much attention.
"Palpitations can mean different things to different people," says Dr. Jay Sengupta, a cardiac electrophysiologist with the Allina Health Minneapolis Heart Institute at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. "But in general, it typically refers to some awareness of one's heartbeat, and it could mean that their heartbeat is skipping, or it could be racing," says Sengupta, who treats heart rhythm disorders.
Heart palpitations can sometimes happen after eating. "When you eat, the body increases blood flow to the digestive system, which can lead to an increase in heart rate," says Dr. Allison Zielinski, a cardiologist and co-director of the sports cardiology program at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute in Chicago.
Palpitations are typically benign, especially if they occur infrequently. "Feeling a skipped beat on occasion is fairly common and usually not dangerous," Zielinski says. That includes chest palpitations after eating.
If palpitations are sustained or increase in frequency, they may be a sign of a more serious medical issue, like arrhythmia, and deserve medical attention. This underlying electrical problem of the heart, which affects the rate or rhythm of your heartbeat, can cause palpitations.
"Symptoms that can be a sign of something more concerning include sudden and prolonged heart racing at rest, sustained irregular heart rate or palpitations accompanied by dizziness, chest pain or shortness of breath," Zielinski says. "Sudden loss of consciousness, also called syncope, can in certain cases be due to an abnormal heart rhythm, so it requires evaluation."
"While many symptoms of palpitations are benign, our concern is heightened if the patient has alarming features with their symptoms, preexisting heart problems, older age or other medical conditions that might increase the risk of more dangerous arrhythmias," Zielinski says.
Finding out your individual triggers could reduce heart palpitations. Keeping track of what you eat and drink and making adjustments can help lessen the chances of experiencing the uncomfortable sensation.
In the health field, the phrase "holiday heart" is sometimes used, but the phenomenon can happen any day of the year. "The term 'holiday heart' refers to increased palpitations after a binge of alcohol, which is usually used in reference to atrial fibrillation after heavy drinking," Zielinski says. "For people with atrial fibrillation, alcohol can increase the risk that they may have an episode. In general, drinking higher amounts of alcohol increases the risk of developing atrial fibrillation."
Processed carbs can contribute to palpitations as well. That's because most carbs are broken down into glucose, or sugar, when they're digested. As a result, they can drive up blood-sugar levels, just like table sugar. If a person has low blood sugar, the swing or spike in blood sugar level is more significant with a carb-rich meal. Blood sugar changes can cause rapid heartbeat or other heart rate variations.
Tyramine is an amino acid, which naturally occurs in the body and regulates blood pressure. When more of the enzyme is released, or taken into the body, it drives up blood pressure, which can increase heart rate and cause heart palpitations.
"Keep a food diary," Sengupta suggests, if you're concerned what you're having is contributing to heart palpitations. Pay special attention to substances such as caffeine, alcohol and sugary foods and drinks you're consuming to see if there's any association between your diet and palpitations. Record not just what you eat, but how you feel, including whether you experience palpitations after eating or drinking certain things.
There is a lot to be said about trying to identify food and lifestyle factors because these are modifiable, Sengupta says. Not only carving out a few foods but making wholesale changes may help. For example, improving your overall diet, such as following a heart-healthy eating pattern like the Mediterranean diet, can reduce your risk of developing an arrhythmia.
A more heart-friendly lifestyle that incorporates a well-rounded diet and regular activity can help with preventing palpitations and in managing a diagnosed arrhythmia. Experts emphasize that in the absence of or in addition to other treatment approaches, like medication to treat arrhythmias, making these adjustments can help reduce palpitations.
If you continue to have frequent heart palpitations, your health care provider may suggest a cardiac workup that might include wearing a portable heart monitor. If you use personal wearables with EKG capabilities, doctors will also evaluate those tracings. An ultrasound can shed light on whether abnormal rhythms may be linked to structural heart abnormalities, Alyesh says. And you could be referred to a cardiac specialist like an electrophysiologist for a more in-depth evaluation to rule out other potential culprits like obstructive sleep apnea. 2ff7e9595c
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