Enhancing Bioprosthetic Valve Life Post-operatively

[Innovativebrain]

Here's my curiosity. What might be all of the ways to enhance bioprosthetic valve life, AFTER placement? I'm a fit active 66 year old male. Mountain biking, semi-retired and working almost every day, physically on my treefarm.

• I am 4 years in with an Edwards Magna Ease.
• I work as an innovation facilitator coach and trainer, often in the Health-care R&D space. Up to now, I have had no clients in the heart valve area.
• There are two studies I am aware of that seem to indicate magnesium supplementation may delay vascular calcification in general, but nothing about preventing calcification of the Bioprosthetic valve material (Bovine Pericardium) I've been supplementing with Magnesium Citrate 200Mg 2x daily since seeing these studies. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/atvbaha.117.309182 and https://openheart.bmj.com/content/5/1/e000668

Anyone else know of anything else to do, or contradictory studies RE: Magnesium supplementation?

Appreciations!
Bob

 

[tom in MO]

What I've read is that there is nothing one can do to change the deterioration of your native valve or a replacement tissue valve. It is what it is. Since they really don't know why one person has problems and another does not, science based treatment is basically an educated guess.

 

[Innovativebrain]

Interesting. Our native valves become inefficient usually because of stiffness and poor sealing due to calcification, for which there are some dietary things we can do to slow it down, perhaps, and my understanding is that calcification is also a culprit for the pericardium from which our bio prosthetic valves are constructed. My take? There likely is stuff we can do, if the hypothesis about root cause of long term deterioration being calcifying is correct. The treatments of the valve material currently being used by Edwards, for instance, is intended to lengthen useful valve life by preventing calcification. Take a look at the two papers I posted above.

 

[tom in MO]

Interesting. Our native valves become inefficient usually because of stiffness and poor sealing due to calcification, for which there are some dietary things we can do to slow it down, perhaps, and my understanding is that calcification is also a culprit for the pericardium from which our bio prosthetic valves are constructed. My take? There likely is stuff we can do, if the hypothesis about root cause of long term deterioration being calcifying is correct. The treatments of the valve material currently being used by Edwards, for instance, is intended to lengthen useful valve life by preventing calcification. Take a look at the two papers I posted above.

From the first paper "However, current evidence relies on basic experimental designs that are often insufficient to delineate the underlying mechanisms." The second paper was beyond my ken but does not have the word "stenosis" or "bicuspid" and there are only three mentions of valves (mitral) related to prolapse. This paper doesn't seem relevant to valve failure.

I've been the victim of the medical profession's obsession with "vascular calcification in general". At the advice of my cardiology clinic I had a stress test with imaging (not covered by insurance but only $100) to determine my level of vascular calcification and was told that I was in early stage cardiovascular failure. The treatment was the same old "Mediterranean diet and aerobic exercise." The practice sells fish oil and heart vitamins which were recommended but not prescribed. A few years later I had an angiogram as part of OHS prep and it revealed that my vascular calcification was present but the thickness of the layer was minimal and the earlier test was incorrect, i.e. a false positive. No wonder why it wasn't covered by insurance. After my valve replacement and its accompanying angiogram, fish oil and vitamins were no longer recommended.