Botox injections are being used to treat an erratic heartbeat, it was reported yesterday.
Doctors are injecting the toxin, usually used as an anti-wrinkle treatment, into fat pads that surround the heart to paralyse the nerves that trigger a faulty rhythm.
The treatment is being used for the most common abnormality of heart rhythm, called atrial fibrillation. It is a condition that affects up to 500,000 people in the UK.
Atrial fibrillation occurs when the chambers of the heart don’t contract in the usual rhythmic way, often as a result of a malfunction in the heart’s natural pacemaker. This means that faulty nerve signals are sent to the heart muscle, causing it to contract at the wrong time.
In some cases, the condition has no symptoms. Typically, however, atrial fibrillation will lead to palpitations, weakness and fatigue, dizziness and a reduced ability to exercise. Many of these aforementioned symptoms are caused by the reduced volume of blood being pumped around the body.
Researchers believe that botox injections will work for this condition by stopping the signals that are sent between the nerves and muscles. When used as a cosmetic treatment, botox deactivates muscles around the eyes, mouth and forehead, smoothing out wrinkles. Doctors will inject botox into the pads of fat around the heart to block the nerve signals causing the faulty rhythm.
The treatment is currently being tested in a new trial, conducted by Columbia University in New York, with 60 patients who have just undergone heart bypass surgery having either Botox or placebo injections immediately after the surgery has been performed. Atrial fibrillation is the most common side-effect of heart surgery; 50 per cent of patients have an increased of the condition. This is thought to be because the surgery interferes with mechanisms that control the heart rhythm.