I'm having trouble getting my heart steady after my last ablation and have been thinking about supplementing arginine and taurine, (on the usual a-fib sufferer basis of trying anything that might help.) It's not established clinical practice and I can only think a GP or EP would be wary.
Plenty of anecdotes on this forum of successes and failures, but almost nothing about the associated doses tried. The seminal paper in 2006 by Eby and Halcomb mentions 3 case studies, where Arginine was successfully used at 6, 4 and 3 g/d, with Taurine at 20, 10 and 12 g/d respectively. A paper on the dose risks of these (Shao & Hathcock, 2008, Risk assesment for...) gives strong absence of adverse effects data at 20 g/d Arginine and 3 g/d Taurine, the opposite balance to the case studies. Our normal food is supposed to have similar amounts anyway, so presumably safe, (but with today's methods, does it?)
Getting much more than 3 g/d of either is a challenge via supplements.
So what have people taken and did that dose work for you?
Also did they change your warfarin INR, which one or both are listed as having effect on?
Thx in advance.
Written by
Cliff_G
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
I take 300mg of Magnesium Glycinate each evening and 500mg of Taurine once a day each morning. The magnesium capsule is recommended twice daily but I also get magnesium from the nuts and seeds I eat daily.
Wouldnt you rather get your vitamins and minerals mostly from food:
L-arginine, an amino acid that helps the body build protein, can be found in various foods, particularly those rich in protein, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
Here's a more detailed look at some of the best food sources of L-arginine:
Protein-Rich Foods:
Meat:
Red meat and poultry are good sources of L-arginine, with white meat like turkey breast being particularly rich.
Fish:
Certain types of fish, like salmon, tuna, and cod, are also good sources of L-arginine.
Dairy:
Dairy products, including milk, yogurt, and cheese, contain L-arginine.
Nuts and Seeds:
Nuts and seeds, such as pumpkin seeds, peanuts, almonds, cashews, and walnuts, are excellent sources of L-arginine.
Legumes:
Legumes like chickpeas, lentils, and soybeans are also good sources of L-arginine.
Chicken:
Chicken is a popular and healthy way to get protein, and it's also a good source of arginine.
Specific Examples:
Pumpkin seeds: Contain a high proportion of arginine, with 100g containing 5.2g.
Peanuts: Are a rich source of L-arginine, reflecting their high protein content.
Almonds: Are nutrition-rich and contain significant amounts of L-arginine.
Turkey breast: Is a good source of arginine, with one breast containing 16.207 grams.
Chickpeas: Are a good source of lysine and arginine.
Lentils: Are a good source of lysine and arginine.
Soybeans: Are a good source of L-arginine.
Cashews: Contain the amino acid L-arginine, which can improve vascular reactivity and circulation.
Walnuts: Contain L-arginine, an amino acid that could improve the health of arteries.
thank you for this list. It’s very helpful. More and more I am looking for natural not pills. must have 50 bottles of supplements. 14 years younger than me and I consider him a mess when it comes to I am concerned many that he take actually have the same stuff in several. I take what is required by my doctor and I’m looking at magnesium now, although I just had that tells me my magnesium is fine. I will be going over with the doctor.
what would you consider good when it comes to vegetables for B12 or do I need something else? I have a feeling I am very low in that again. I will be finding out when I sit with the doctor, but I’m pretty sure eating more will not hurt me especially with your help. Thank you again.
Just about every fruit contains B12 including potatoes, apples, oranges, bananas, spinach, peas, mushrooms, beetroot, strawberries, avocado, kiwi. Meat naturally contains it as does eggs and dairy foods. I'm sure there must be lots more than I've written here.
thanks for some I’m really having trouble eating meat. In fact I’m having trouble eating anything once I start to eat I’m OK, but I’m nauseated. I have an appointment with a new doctor but not until 15 April. My other doctor moved away. not right with my pacemaker I can tell but I was looking at other factors and I pretty much check off everything when it comes to for making me feel the way I except for the pacemaker part. I vaguely remember years ago having a B12 problem I was pretty young. It also seemed to common in my family for them to be getting the B12 shots. I will be also seeing my but I figure it’s not gonna hurt to get started if I don’t need B12 because I need to eat anyway it might as well be something good for me lol I hope you’re doing. I have taken several bad falls. There’s a good possibility that I shook my pacemaker up a bit. I have had such perfect numbers now all of a sudden I’m back to pain in my chest things I used to have with a fib. My heart rate can go and stay normal all day around and suddenly shoot up to 90 for the rest of the night and as you know, you can the difference. My first two years with the pacemaker have been incredible until I got something they don’t even know what to call it yet as a virus. It’s not fair. We should get this stuff when we’re younger so we can fight it easier but you and I are a fighter. We know we can anyway.
I always enjoy reading you. You’re always pretty much on the money in the way that I think.
I have restarted taking Nutri Mega Mag Muscleze but only taking half the dose it says on the tin, considering increasing this. It has Taurine et al in it. As Jean says best from food but gauging the dose and clean sources is even more difficult and possibly impractical for most.
Yes, agree food is the best source, but even with a rounded diet (which I have) and even if you're vegetarian, the arginine in food should be more than ample, so why do some find supplementing effective?
Certainly many micronutrients are deficient in soils with modern farming methods (at one point I found potassium supplements effective on my ectopics as they got me up to the higher end of the allowable range), but amino acids from tissue sources you'd think would escape that. Maybe there's a different reason.
ChatGPT gives credible reasons for taurine and arginine deficiency. Low protein intake (esp. taurine if veggy), stress, inflammation, aging, lack of the basics to enable our bodies to synthesise these.
Interesting about aging, since of course the incidence of AF rises a lot with advanced age, and all three subjects in the Eby paper were aged. Aging slows our synthesis of Taurine and Argenine.
I have been taking 1 gram per day of each supplementally and so far have not noticed any difference to my weekly afib bouts, but time may tell, as with almost everything it may be dose dependent.
Cliff I’ve found out that having too much arginine gives me cold sores also known as as HSV virus. I had AF about 5 weeks when I had a cold sores (HSV) and looked back in my notes and noticed a couple of years back I also got an episode of AF same time as another cold sore. I did some research and found a large study showing that people who have HSV had a much higher chance of getting AF than those who don’t carry the HSV virus
So if you have a history of cold sores maybe hang off taking Arginine
I did bloodwork a year ago and found I was low in Vitd3 CoQ10 and magnesium. I now take 200mg magnesium glycinate at night and 130mg Mg Taurate late morning and 200mg CoQ10 and 1000iu Vitd3. Some of these are fat soluble so you need to take with things like a teaspoon of peanut butter or with your meal
Thanks. No, no cold sores thankfully. Hope you can clear that.
I've already been taking D3 due to our high Scottish latitude, and CoQ10 on advice from the lipids Consultant, to counteract any side effects of the small statin dose I'm on. On Vit D, I did a test and was a fair way above "deficient" but was not quite up to the best for the immune system. It really is best to get tested, in the same way you'd test for anaemia, electrolytes etc., but the NHS won't do that unless you're showing symptoms of rickets etc!
In Australia we are covered under Medicare though the CoQ10 test is an extra charge however Mg and VitD are included. I was also interested to read as we age in particular over 50 our bodies don’t produce as much coq10. It is found throughout our body but most abundant in our hearts. There have been many studies where it has been shown to be beneficial in HF patients. In terms of the magnesium intake I cannot be sure but after about 6 months of supplements my ectopics seem to only visit me only a couple of times a month rather than every few days so maybe try that… though it can take several months of supps before your levels can improve, it took me nearly 12 months to go from low to mid level in my bloods
My original understanding of magnesium levels was that for arrhythmias, serum Mg is less important than intracellular, and the two don't correlate well. Not sure how solid that is, but intracellular Mg is a more difficult test.
I take 1g of both at lunch and 1g of taurine in the evening. My a fib has lessened but don't know whether it's this or magnesium supplements which I also take. I had been taking nexium for years so it might be magnesium depletion which can take months to correct and that coincided with the improvement in my a fib also. I believe offal is good for taurine but I don't like it. Anyway I'll probably experiment with lowering doses of each supplement and see if a fib comes back to previous levels. Also I've cut back alcohol drastically which meant a loss of weight... another factor? The mind boggles.
Thanks. I've pretty much decided to start with about the same levels as you. I have to be a bit careful titrating it up, as I'm on warfarin and BP meds (aortic dissection: the gift that goes on giving!)
Re. offal, I will have to see how my fib is after our weekly haggis, which we love! 🤣
Hi CliffI take 100mg of taurine and 100mg of l argerine ..also 100mg of coq10
I have been afib free since early Dec..I totally believe these supplements helped me ..I haven't lost weight unfortunately 😕 😪..I also take magnesium citrate
When i started ..I was in afib 24hours a day ..then free for a few hours in day gradually gone..
Yes. I found magnesium definitely reduced my ectopics after my first ablation, so it's been a regular one for me for over a decade, around 400 mg of magnesium - you have to look at the Mg content not the Mg plus other material, but it's not often clear what the stated milligrams actually is. Magnesium taurate is 9% by weight magnesium and 91% taurate! Can work it out from the molecular weight given in Wikipedia, helps if you know chemistry.
This is all one big experiment and you need to experiment on yourself. In all my readings that I do, the advise is always start low and go slow. Which means you experiment on yourself. Also in my readings I have learned and am experimenting with myself, that most of us have SiBO/SIFO. which is small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or fungal overgrowth which then doesn't allow even pancreatic enzymes to form and you don't digest your food all that well and end up with malabsorption. I was diagnoses with that years ago. Correct diagnosis or not I don't really know. but upon further reading, it is quite possible. There are breathing instruments one can get to prove it one way or another but if anyone has ever taken an anti-biotic they most likely will have SIBO. That said do some research on that,
Just FYI I am taking (Ethical Nutritions) Magnesium Taurate x 3 tabs per day (elemental Mg per tablet 150mg, and Mg Taurate 1720mg) so that's 450 elemental Mg per day. Plus I take one L-Taurine 500mg per day, to increase the Taurine.
Also started taking 3 x (Cytoplan) L-Argenine Plus per day (500mg L-Arginine and 250mg L-Orthinine per tablet) so that's 1500mg L-Arginine and 750mg L-Orthinine per day.
When I started to up these doses and introduce L-Arginine and Taurine a few months ago it was hard to figure out dosing. So I asked my local pharmacist about 'safe' doses he said up to 3g of both is safe. However as you know, medical studies have used much more.
I feel happy with the Mg Taurate not sure yet about the L-Arginine what it's doing ...
You can obviously check with your own pharmacist I find them knowledgeable and helpful. My cardiologist is really helpful but studiously ignores any questions about supplements, I think it's outside his purview, they have to be careful when there's not much science to rely on.
So far AF episodes have been reducing in frequency and duration, from twice a week in 2023 to every two to three months currently, I've made so many changes it's hard to know what is working. And of course the odd spot of intense stress can set me off and ruin the record ... so not out of the woods yet ...!
As you probably know, Magnesium is said to be good for sleep, so I take I x Mg Taurate at midday and two in the evening.
I have been having regular acupuncture since onset of AF, which has been very helpful and take Reishi (Chinese mushroom) supplements daily.
You probably know this but if you go for acupuncture it's important to find someone with a lot of experience who is registered with the British Acupuncture Council, and taken a 3 years course rather than a few weeks ... It's highly complex and skilled.
Thanks, yes, the guy I see is, though I'm having him look at something else first. Letting my post-ablation EP treatment run its course first. Looks to be getting there (famous last words)
I've just looked again at the meta study of acupuncture that you posted previously, I'm no scientist and most of the detail escapes me. However it seems that the treatment is applied actually during AF episodes and so the efficacy of treatment is in returning people to NSR using acupuncture. If I understand this correctly it's really interesting and I've sent the paper to my acupuncturist to see what he makes of it.
And I'll have to read it again! Good point. Though I suspect the treatment interacts with the nervous system in a way that eould help, whether in or out of AF?
Yes exactly - I've had acupuncture regularly for over a year as a general treatment for AF and it is definitely having a positive effect.
I'll talk to my acupuncturist about the suggestion (if I understood it correctly) that acupuncture might be able to restore NSR during an AF episode ...
My AF episodes are always early hours or night time so I don't see how it's going to work for me in practice, but in principle it's interesting.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
Taurine & arginine 
Magnesium and Warfarin 
Meta-analysis Identifies Supplements That Benefit Cardiovascular Health
A-fib website
Paroxismal Afib, diet and lifestyle
