Heart Palpitations and Trigger Foods

Dr. Sinatra: E-letter subscriber. Dr. Sinatra, I have cardiac palpitations. I went to my doctor. He said everything is okay, but he told me to avoid alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and chocolate and I'm a chocoholic. What am I supposed to do?

Well, your doctor's right. I have to agree with your doctor. Listen, many healthy people have skipped heartbeats. We call them, "PAC's," we call them, "PVC's", but we have skipped heartbeats and it's a natural phenomena. Most of the time it's caused by stress, it's caused by adrenaline or cortisol, or stress biochemicals; however, sugar can bring it out because of the relationship between insulin and adrenaline in the body, certainly caffeine can do it, alcohol can lower the arrhythmia threshold, so it's important to consider these things.

So, I agree with your doctor. If you want to stop PVC's and if you're a chocoholic, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you could take a little piece of, you know, dark cocoa, just one little piece, and see if that invokes your PVC's, but if it does, you better stop the chocolate as well.