Cardiac Heart Rate Dependence on Mitochondrial Deuterium 2H Content

Mitochondrial cardiac ATP production efficiency in beef hearts has been known to decrease with increasing systemic deuterium ²H levels since the 1980’s. Recently ketogenic diets which are known to decrease deuterium levels in humans were found to decrease both the resting and exercise heart rates in a volunteer. Furthermore, resting heart rates were found to systematically vary with the deuterium content from the previous meal consumed by six volunteers. A cardiac model is proposed showing extreme sensitivity of heart rate on the deuterium loading of the ATP synthase nanomotors. A predicted increase in heart rate by 28% is expected with a 5% decrease in ATP production. This finding strongly suggests that high deuterium levels in the fatty acids contribute to the diastolic dysfunction in heart failure not already attributed to direct structural damage, i.e., heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.