Many dietary supplements promise to improve physical and mental functioning, but caffeine, an age-old food component, is one of the few that delivers. Caffeine makes its consumers awake and alert, and it improves performance (1). Therefore, coffee could be called a functional food. But is it safe? If coffee were discovered today, it would probably be regarded, in the European Union’s terminolog...

OBJECTIVES In cirrhotic patients, despite presence of significant metabolic abnormalities and enlarged left atria, we have seldom observed atrial fibrillation (AF) rhythm. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of AF among cirrhotic patients and comparing it with that reported in the general population. MATERIALS AND METHODS Medical documents of 1302 adult cirrhotic patients, bo...

BACKGROUND Postoperative atrial fibrillation remains a common cause of morbidity. Although epicardial drug delivery can increase efficacy and reduce side effects, it is impractical for postoperative atrial fibrillation because pericardial bleeding/effusion and drainage cause rapid drug elimination. Fibrin glue sprayed on the epicardium is vigorously adherent, allowing an admixed drug to remain ...

THE QUESTION WHETHER tachyarrhythmias are caused by enhanced impulse formation (“focus”) or by reentrant excitation (“reentry”) has been the subject of debate for more than a century. In 1887 McWilliam (12) was the first to suggest that disturbances in impulse propagation could be responsible for fibrillation, and he clearly envisaged the possibility that myocardial fibers could be reexcited as...

Accurate delineation of the variable left atrial anatomy is of utmost importance during anatomically based ablation procedures for atrial fibrillation targeting the pulmonary veins and possibly other structures of the atria. Intracardiac echocardiography allows real-time visualisation of the left atrium and adjacent structures and thus facilitates precise guidance of catheter-based ablation of ...

AIMS Recent studies reported slowed conduction velocity (CV) in murine hearts homozygous for the gain-of-function RyR2-P2328S mutation (RyR2(S/S)) and associated this with an increased incidence of atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. The present experiments determined mechanisms contributing to the reduced atrial CV. METHODS AND RESULTS The determinants of CV were investigated in murine RyR2(...

background: selenium (se) is an essential trace element mainly obtained from seafood, meat, and cereals. se deficiency has been identified as a major contributing factor in the pathogenesis of certain congestive heart failure (chf) syndromes. since there is controversy over the prevalence of se deficiency among patient with chf, the aim of this study was to assess the serum se concentrations in...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is often preceded by underlying cardiac diseases causing ventricular pressure overload. OBJECTIVE It was our aim to investigate the progression of atrial remodeling in a small animal model of ventricular pressure overload and its association with induction of AF. METHODS Male mice were subjected to transverse aortic constriction (TAC) or sham operation. A...

BACKGROUND Therapeutic decisions in atrial fibrillation (AF) are often influenced by assessment of bleeding risk. However, existing bleeding risk scores have limitations. OBJECTIVES We sought to develop and validate a novel bleeding risk score using routinely available clinical information to predict major bleeding in a large, community-based AF population. METHODS We analysed data from Out...

background: p wave dispersion (pwd) is defined as the difference between the maximum p wave duration (p max ) and the minimum p wave duration (p min ) in 12-leads of the surface electrocardiography. the aim of this study was to evaluate the values of pwd during atrial fibrillation (af) after acute myocardial infarction (ami).   methods: we prospectively evaluated atrial rhythms of 350 patients ...