March 18, 2025, 12:33 pm | Read time: 4 minutes
Irregular heartbeats are not uncommon. Cardiologist and FITBOOK expert Dr. Christopher Schneeweis provides insights into the causes, symptoms, and modern treatment methods for arrhythmias. He explains that arrhythmias can originate from both the atria and the ventricles of the heart. While harmless palpitations affect many people, certain other warning signs should be taken seriously. Particularly alarming is syncope—a sudden loss of consciousness that may indicate a serious disorder.
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“Arrhythmias can originate from the atria or the ventricles of the heart”
FITBOOK: What are arrhythmias?
Dr. Christopher Schneeweis: “Arrhythmia is simply a term for irregular heartbeats that are not in a normal rhythm. There is a variety of arrhythmias. They can originate from either the atria or the ventricles of the heart.”
Cardiologist on the different symptoms of arrhythmias
What are the first signs?
“The heart suddenly races. These would be symptoms of atrial fibrillation, for example. If I have arrhythmias originating from the ventricles, known as ventricular arrhythmias, individual extra beats may be perceived or a pause followed by a very strong heartbeat. Other symptoms could include dizziness, unsteady gait, or a feeling of restlessness that I can’t quite pinpoint. I might also experience palpitations. A real alarm signal should go off if there is a syncope, a sudden loss of consciousness, possibly accompanied by a fall. That is an alarm signal.”
Also interesting: How to prevent relapses after a heart attack and other heart events
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What causes arrhythmias?
“Depending on the arrhythmia, we need to either rule out or confirm different conditions. Arrhythmias can be caused by many things. We check for possible heart muscle diseases. Genetic factors can also trigger these heart muscle diseases, or stress factors. To find the real cause, we need to narrow down the arrhythmias. So: What type of arrhythmia is it? Depending on that, we continue to search for what might be triggering the arrhythmias and how we can then treat them specifically.”
About diagnosis and treatment of arrhythmias
How is an arrhythmia diagnosed?
“We perform a standard 12-lead ECG to see if we can already detect an arrhythmia and perhaps further narrow down its origin. Does it come from the atria or the ventricles? From which region of the ventricle does it possibly originate? Then we have the option of long-term ECG recording. This means patients receive a device to record heart currents over a certain period, usually 24 to 72 hours. It tells us: How frequent are the arrhythmias, what percentage of normal heart activity do these arrhythmias represent? Then we conduct general heart diagnostics, such as an ultrasound of the heart: Do we already see any changes in the heart muscle that might trigger arrhythmias? Depending on the arrhythmia, we also recommend heart MRI diagnostics to see: Is there a structural heart disease, such as a heart muscle disease? Or are there any damages to the heart muscle that could cause these arrhythmias?”
How does the treatment proceed?
“Depending on the arrhythmia, there are different therapy concepts. These range from medication therapy to the use of a pacemaker. In ablation therapy, a modern procedure, arrhythmias are treated precisely by the local destruction of this extra impulse.”
“Arrhythmias can essentially be cured”
Are arrhythmias curable?
“Arrhythmias can essentially be cured, if you want to put it that way. It always depends on the disorder, but there are very modern procedures today like electrophysiology. This is a part of cardiology that deals exclusively with arrhythmias and can treat them precisely through interventions.”
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About FITBOOK Expert Dr. Schneeweis
Dr. Christopher Schneeweis is a specialist in internal medicine and cardiology. He trained at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Charité Berlin—where he worked for more than seven years at the German Heart Center of Charité—and the Cardioangiological Centrum Bethanien in Frankfurt/Main. With his podcast “Heart Check” and as @doc_schneeweis on Instagram, he makes medical knowledge accessible to laypeople. The cardiologist is a protagonist of the third season of FITBOOK Experts; other experts include dermatologist Dr. Emi Arpa and dentist Dr. Anne Heinz. You can find all episodes with the doctors here.
These episodes are still to come
Now you know more about the symptoms of arrhythmias and can correctly interpret warning signals. In the coming weeks, more heart topics with FITBOOK Expert Dr. Christopher Schneeweis await you:
– Heart failure
– Coronary heart disease
– Beta blockers and blood thinners
– All about heart check-ups