Early Warning for Cardiac Arrest (Don’t Forget Fish Oil!)

Sudden Cardiac Arrest- New Research On Early Warning Signs. (Don’t Forget Fish Oil!)
My beloved experienced chest pain a few months ago. Given that his family history is significant for heart disease, we played it safe and went to the emergency department. He was fine thankfully, but a he was little sheepish about going to the ED with a “non-issue”. I however, was grateful he was willing to go. A new study out this week validates my concern around playing it safe. It turns out “sudden” cardiac arrest (SCA) really isn’t so sudden. Warning signs are there in about 50% of the population. Heeding them may save your life, but they found in this study a full 80% of individuals ignored those early, lifesaving signs. These signs include shortness of breath, heart palpitations and/or chest pain or pressure. The signs can also be less specific: flu-like symptoms, nausea or back pain. Not surprisingly, those who did respond to the early signs had better outcome than those who did not. Mortality with SCA is 90%. Most people die from it.

Reduce risk of sudden cardiac death by up to 90% with adequate supplementation of fish oil.
Allow me to diverge here slightly and make this wildly important point: Anyone with heart disease or risk of heart disease needs to be supplementing with fish oil. Ideally, enough per day to achieve an omega-3 index of >8%. That is, the RBC lipid membrane is comprised of at least 8% EPA/DHA. The amount required to achieve 8% varies from individual to individual, so testing is required. However, this test should be available standard labs such as Quest or LabCorp and covered by insurance. I usually go with about 2.5g/day. Check out this 2008 discussion on the Omega-3 Index by Harris.

Author: Kara Fitzgerald, ND

https://www.drkarafitzgerald.com/

Kara Fitzgerald, ND, received her doctor of naturopathic medicine degree from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon. She completed the first Counsel on Naturopathic Medicine-accredited post-doctorate position in nutritional biochemistry and laboratory science at Metametrix Clinical Laboratory under the direction of Richard Lord, PhD. Her residency was completed at Progressive Medical Center, a large, integrative medical practice in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Fitzgerald is the lead author and editor of Case Studies in Integrative and Functional Medicine and is a contributing author to Laboratory Evaluations for Integrative and Functional Medicine and the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM)’s Textbook for Functional Medicine. With the Helfgott Research Institute, Dr. Fitzgerald is actively engaged in clinical research on the DNA methylome using a diet and lifestyle intervention developed in her practice. The first publication from the study focuses on reversal of biological aging and was published 04-12-2021 in the journal Aging. She has published a consumer book titled Younger You as well as a companion cookbook, Better Broths and Healing Tonics and has an application-based Younger You Program, based on the study. Dr. Fitzgerald is on the faculty at IFM, is an IFM Certified Practitioner and lectures globally on functional medicine. She runs a Functional Nutrition Residency program, and maintains a podcast series, New Frontiers in Functional Medicine and an active blog on her website, www.drkarafitzgerald.com. Her clinical practice is in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. Additional publications

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Early Warning for Cardiac Arrest (Don’t Forget Fish Oil!)

Author: Kara Fitzgerald, ND

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