Welcome to Heart Healthy Living with Dr. Jackie, a big blend radio podcast that features Dr. Jacqueline Obani, a board certified cardiologist and electrophysiologist and author of the best-selling book, Women and Heart Disease, The Real Story. Welcome everyone with September being Atrial Fibrillation Month. Dr. Jackie wanted to make sure that you know the symptoms and understand what is happening when Atrial Fibrillation occurs. She also talks about whether you should be calling 911 or going to see a doctor, and as always we talk about healthy lifestyle habits that are good for your heart and fun and often delicious. Stay tuned. Well Atrial Fibrillation is when the top chamber of your heart is not beating properly. Instead of beating at, say, 60 beats per minute or something, it's going really fast and patients feel things like palpitations or heart racing, shortness of breath, chest discomfort and those kinds of things. So basically it's an arrhythmia where your heart is going really fast. Your heart is going really fast and at that point, is that something you need to call 911 or is that just a normal thing that you need to know about and go see a regular doctor? Yeah, you should definitely go see a regular doctor, but if you are experiencing rapid heart beat that's associated with chest discomfort or difficulty breathing, you should call 911 at that moment. Because when your heart's beating fast, you're not getting appropriate oxygen to your different organ systems which can cause problems, so you need to get that corrected. Concerns with Atrial Fibrillation is your risk of developing a stroke when you're in Atrial Fibrillation. And this happens because your heart's beating so fast that you have blood lingering in the chambers of your heart and you have a higher propensity of forming blood class. It's just like seeing blood coagulates when it's just sitting in the chamber and when that blood forms a blood clot and it finally pumps out of the heart, it can go straight to the brain and cause a stroke. So that's one of the biggest years of Atrial Fibrillation. Wow, so this is like if you can recognize it early, you can prevent a stroke and also prevent a heart attack. You can you can prevent all of these things happening. That's a big deal. Yes, heart failure, stroke, even a heart. You can if you have, you know, blockages in your heart or if you have a high risk of stroke, this can actually tip you over and cause you to. I'm sorry, if you are at high risk of having a heart attack, because you have all the risk factors and you have blockages in your heart, this can actually tip you over and cause you to have a full on heart attack. Okay, so when people think about 911, right, so let's talk about women because women, as you've talked about in your book, do your book, everybody, again, the best-selling book, women in heart disease, the real story, you can go to womenandheartdiseasebook.com. Yeah, yeah, go, go, go, go. Please, because Dr. Jackie's always here about prevention. She doesn't want you to be at the 911 point, but 911 thing, man, don't don't mess around, do it. Like, you may think you don't want to do it. Your friend or loved one that you're in front of, maybe experiencing symptoms and say, no, but when you see someone that's exhibiting, you may want to do that. So, Dr. Jackie, can you give everyone an example of a woman and a man in regards to possibly having a heart attack and even a stroke, because that, they're kind of similar, right? But women are different than men. We're different, y'all. I mean, the symptoms of a stroke are, of course, different from a heart attack, because it's a different organ system that's affected. When you're having a stroke, the blockages is in your brain. When you're having a heart attack, the blockages in your heart. So, your symptoms are based on where the blockages. So, if it's in your heart, you can have symptoms of chest pain, incidence of breath. And if it's in your brain, you can have symptoms of slurred speech, muscle weakness. And we can talk about the algorithm for diagnosing a stroke, the B fast, which is what people talk about, B for balance, E for I visual changes. We just say I changes or visual changes. So, F for muscle and I'm sorry, F for facial weakness, A for arm weakness, we say. Yeah. And so, if you see those things in patients, then you should definitely call 911. It is not your job to make the diagnosis. If you feel like the person sitting in front of you is just not feeling well and looking really terrible, it's very important for you to go to the ER, because in the ER, you will get the appropriate diagnosis and be treated rapidly if it is a life threatening issue. Again, I also say don't try to pick the person up, call 911 and let them come and pick the person up, because you may not know what's going on. Absolutely. What I've learned recently is they will actually help that patient immediately. And you can probably prevent more issues, right? Am I right on that? Yeah, no, absolutely. The reason for calling 911 is if the patient's condition changes drastically, you want a professional around to help you. If the patient all of a sudden stops breathing or develops chest pains, the EMS, their professionals, they can help mitigate these symptoms and they can increase your survival rate going to the emergency room. It's hard to do. It's a scary thing for people to do. And going through that, so atrial fit relation. So, we have to learn this. We do all because at the end of the day, this connects us with everybody that we know, right? We have to understand this. So, this could be a DNA thing, right? That we also not just dietary. I always want to go back to food because we're going to fall and I'm going to ask you about food. Yeah, you can develop a fib from risk factors, absolutely. So, eating unhealthy, being overweight, not doing physical activity, alcohol. Alcohol is a biggie for atrial fibrillation. The wine, she's going to get them after me with the wine. Yes, alcohol has a direct toxic effect on the heart. So, there's a direct linkage between heavy alcohol use and atrial fibrillation. But Dr. Jackie, they say wine calms us down. I mean, yes, it can relax you, but you should only drink it in moderation because you can drink more than that. It can be one five ounce glass. Any more than moderation can be toxic to all your organ citizens, especially your heart. And chocolate is good too, right? Dark chocolate is good. We're glad that everything in moderation. You don't want to do everything. Okay, I'm just bringing in that fun factor. If you want some fun in there, but okay. So, you said, you know, we've got to prevent, right? We want to prevent this to happen. So, what is your favorite way right now that you can tell people to something fun that they could do that is heart healthy that will be fun for you. What's fun? What's fun for me and what's relaxing for me is, I would say meditation, being able to sit quietly in a room and take deep breaths and just center oneself. That I think is fun and it's good for, you know, I've talked in my book about studies that show that meditation can help decrease your blood pressure, decrease your heart rate. So, that would be my fun thing to do. I love that you say that because I've been watching and doing, actively practicing it and it's hard to remember. I actually have a whole folder on my computer on this about breath work and about just this deep breathing. And they say if you do this deep breathing, you're going to live more like seven more years, right? And then when you do it, you actually really feel like you're at the top of the mountain, right? It's amazing, this deep breath work and it's five minutes. If you do it in the beginning of the day, it's like, oh, I can do this, right? And I've actually got to the point of no coffee over breath work. And no, I love my coffee though, man, I do. But breath work has started to win over the coffee. And I'm at that point and not quite there yet, but I'm getting there. And I feel like even at the end of the day, if you do this, you will sleep better. What are you saying? Yes, I would agree with that. It helps with everything. It helps with your sleep. It helps with your mental state, with your stress, which overall translates into better vital signs, better numbers that overall translates into a healthier heart. We don't want to have the fifth relation. I want a happy time with my friends and family, but I don't want to have a fifth relation. Does that make sense? That we don't? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's always good to prevent it. But if you do have it, there are many options for treatment that you should definitely sit down with your doctor to discuss because it's not the end of the world. It's very important to make the diagnosis like I said, because of the increased risk of stroke associated with it. Once the diagnosis is made and you are treated, your life expectancy is about comparable to somebody who does not have these things. So a lot of times people find out about this in ER, or do they find it out about it going to a doctor? Well, if you go to see a doctor on a regular basis, you're more likely to have a diagnosis there. But if you're one to not go to be a doctor ever, then quite a handful of times people present to the emergency room with the stroke. And that's how the diagnosis is made. So you don't ever want to be in that situation. So it's important to see your doctor on a regular basis. So that these medical illnesses that can sometimes have no symptoms and you feel like you're healthy, they get caught early because somebody's watching and checking you. Because even though I said that you can develop palpitations or fast heartbeat with atrial fibrillation, there's a segment of the population that feel nothing when their heart's racing, which is amazing to me, but it does exist. And for those kinds of patients, you'll never make the diagnosis. Yeah, you'll never make the diagnosis until something catastrophic happens, showing up in the ER with a stroke. So that's why it's important to keep up with your regular doctor's appointment. So is it an age thing that we need to look at too or not? Yeah, we do see them in younger people, but definitely the risk increases as you get older and as you know, older females have the highest risk. Oh, nice. Just like, thank you very much, Dr. Jackie. She's not, she's not the bearer of bad news, but no, but you know, it's good to know. So really, when we come down to it, like, again, goes to prevention, always. Yes. That's your, your thing is prevention is best because it's cheaper and it has less long term effects. But of course, if you do develop it, it's really not the end of the world. There are treatments associated with it. And if you stick to your treatments, stick with your doctor's visits, being compliant with everything, you are, you know, your mortality rate or survival rate would probably be about similar to a person without these other comorbidities. And dietary, we can do the Mediterranean diet, which is pretty cool, like you like. I know you like that. And I look at that every time and I'm going, like, we can do that. Isn't it actually, at the end of the day about whole foods and not processed crap? Yes. Yes. It's amazing. I said the crap or like, I mean it. I really, I look at this and go, have we gotten to this point of crazy? Like, I know that we travel so much. So probably not a good thing on some of our food choices, but getting better. But I'm like, I, I made an amazing meal the other night. I, it's amazing. I mean, all kinds of vegetables and it was like a big store fry of food, right? That people would never expect to happen because of what I did, because it's what I had, right? In the fridge at that time. And I thought, you know, I can make these all work together. And they did. Yeah. Sunflower seeds and everything, y'all. Like, nice. There was potatoes, there was cabbage, there were carrots, there was all kale. Dr. Jackie, I know you like kale, right? Yes. I love baby. Yes. Kale and carrots. Everything that you're talking about is really good and hard, healthy because they contain a lot of micronutrients. Yeah. And I put them together and I made this amazing dinner that I didn't even think I knew how to make. I did. So I want to challenge everybody to go into their fridge, start like doing healthy meal. Just do it. Just do it. Just do something you don't even know. Just make a meal you don't even know. Just do something brand new. Because it's fun. Yes. Right. It's fun. You don't know and it may fail, which is probably half of everything I always do on anything in cooking. But then you go, "Ha ha, that was fun." But this part was good. So let's do it next time this way. Absolutely. Yeah. So Dr. Jackie, tell me a good meal that you want to have right now that is heart healthy. Well, I like fish. So I love salmon. So I would say a grilled salmon and a salad would be my choice for heart healthy meal for dinner. And the salad, do you want iceberg? Do you want kale? Do you want spinach? I'm always about spinach. Yeah. I like that. That's easy. I love spinach. Because it stays long too. Yeah. Spinach is good. Yes. I love spinach salad. And I would put a little bit of blue cheese in it. Cool. Oh, now I'm really your friend now. I love it. Dr. Jackie, everybody, keep up with Dr. Jackie at womenandheartdiseasebook.com. Stay tuned for next week. Or next, I'm going to say next week. Next month's podcast, stay tuned. Thank you, Dr. Jackie. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for joining us on Big Blend Radio's Heart Healthy Living Show with Dr. Jackie. New episodes air every second Wednesday at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. You can keep up with Dr. Jackie at womenandheartdiseasebook.com. Listen to the shows at BigBlendRadio.com. [BLANK_AUDIO]
