Palpitations--Finally, an Answer and a Fix

 After suffering with heart-pounding palpitations for eight years, I finally have an answer: endotoxemia brought on by emulsifiers, which thin the mucus in your digestive tract and allow toxins in your gut to get into the rest of your system. I finally realized the cause (emulsifiers in food) and Dr. Davis suggested the effect (endotoxemia). He said in the Zoom meeting last night that was probably the cause, and that endotoxemia was a big factor in heart disease. 

Since cutting out emulsifiers like guar gum, gellan gum, lecithin, locust/carob bean gum and even palm oil (used in almond butter to homogenize it), the palpitations have gone and so have my puffy face, neck pain and TMJ pain. I'm sleeping better, feeling better and thinking more clearly. Did I mention it's been eight years since I felt this well? 

Victory! Photo from Unsplash.

You know how you feel after you've had a very long day--or several in a row? That's how I felt for five days. It was such a relief to relax, to finally feel like I was in a quiet body again, that I just wanted to sit and savor the feeling. 

So, what foods am I avoiding now? 

• Cream cheese (I can't find any without gums), 
• Almond butter without an oil layer (if it doesn't have an oil layer, it's emulsified)
• Cream (except Kalona, the only brand I can find without thickeners)
• Chocolate (if it has lecithin)
• Protein powder (even Paleo Pro has lecithin--bummer!)
• Coconut milk (except Native Forest Simple)
• Kind bars (thickeners)

And some food I've avoided anyway because of other junky ingredients:

• Salad dressing (except Primal Kitchen and homemade)
• Almond milk (that trip in the ambulance permanently put me off it)
• Non-dairy creamer (it's pure junk)
• Quest bars (has thickeners and erythritol, a sugar alcohol that gives me more rumbling and gas than a border blockade)

Avoiding all this food has been surprisingly easy. I've had coffee, half-and-half and homemade yogurt with strawberries and green banana for breakfast, meat, cheese and vegetables for lunch, and homemade trail mix with nuts, seeds, coconut flakes and unsweetened cranberries as a snack. Dinner is random food (all low-carb) from the kitchen. For substitutions, I'll try ricotta cheese for cheese cake and gelatin for a thickener. 

I told the good news of my recovery to someone who said that's great, but you shouldn't wait eight years to find out what's causing your palpitations. First, I have a calcium score of zero, so I'm at around zero risk for a heart attack. Second, Dr. Google says cardiologists don't know what causes palpitations aside from stress. Going to see a coin-operated pill dispenser would have been a waste of time and money--especially money since the dispensers take Benjamins. The only person I could find online who got rid of his palpitations said he thoroughly cleaned up his diet and ate a lot of fermented foods. This was from ten years ago. If people commonly solved their palpitations, you'd think there would be more accounts of it. 

Is this the answer for everyone's palpitations? I have no idea. I only know avoiding food emulsifiers and thickeners is a no-risk solution you can try yourself.