arrhythmia is an irregular heart beat, which may be experienced as a very fast beat or very slow beat or a skipped beat.

Symptoms may include fast heart beats, fluttering sensation in the chest, skipped heart beat, dizziness, shortness of breath, and even chest pain. Sinus arrhythmia, which is a change in heart rate that can happen normally when you take a breath, is quite common. In most cases, however, this is completely harmless. There is no need to be anxious or to panic if you feel occasional heart flutters or heart racing. If these experiences occur frequently, you should see your doctor.

In the vast majority of cases, the arrhythmia is nothing to worry about. These arrhythmias do not require the person to undergo examinations or treatments for the condition. In some people, the arrhythmia is linked to heart disease. In these cases, it is the heart disease, and not the arrhythmia, that poses the greatest risk to the patient.

Sometimes the doctor can detect an arrhythmia by listening to the heart with a stethoscope. However, an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) is the most precise method for diagnosing an arrhythmia. The patient lies down, and disks are placed on the chest and connected by wires to an ECG machine. Electrical signals in the heart cause a pen to draw lines across a strip of graph paper. The doctor studies these lines to check for any changes in the normal rhythm.

No. One animal study that is sometimes used to suggest that cesium can cause cardiac arrhythmias actually involved the administration of massive doses of the mineral to canine subjects for the express purpose of inducing an arrhythmia. Ironically, at lower doses, cesium has been used to control cardiac arrhythmia. You may note that this fact is mentioned in the last paragraph of Dr. Brewer's paper.

Arrhythmias may be caused in several ways. First, it can be a failure of the normal heart electrical system (that is, the failure of the sinus node, AV node, bundle of His or bundle branches to function normally). The second major cause would be irritable spots taking over and making the heart race. The third cause would be a short circuit allowing continuous excitation and racing of the heart.

Heart racing may recur in about 2-15% of people. Early recurrences (less than 6-12 months) usually mean a recurrence of the original cause of the racing whereas later recurrences may signal the appearance of a new form of racing. The exception to this is for people having ablation for atrial fibrillation in which recurrences in the first 2 or 3 months do not necessarily mean that the ablation procedure did not work. Options for people with recurrence include the four original options:

Your physician will most likely start by evaluating your symptoms and medical history and performing a physical exam. He or she may also perform electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG) and/or cardiac echo tests. The EKG will produce a graph that represents the phases of activation of the heart. Physicians can tell the difference between normal and abnormal heartbeats from this chart, which shows the electrical activity of the heart.