According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, AF contributes to approximately 158,000 US deaths each year. It is a major cause of stroke, as blood clots can form inside fibrillation-prone atria, the upper chambers of the heart. About 12 million people in the US have AF, with steadily increasing numbers of individuals diagnosed over the past two decades.
The study published in the 'Nature Cardiovascular Research Journal' show an association
between increased drinking and hospital visits for atrial fibrillation (AF) in a large population and the first to link acute alcohol consumption with an increased incidence of new-onset AF in previously undiagnosed individuals.
Atrial fibrillation most often arises in individuals with pre-existing heart conditions, but other chronic health conditions, including potentially modifiable behaviours such as obesity and alcohol consumption, also have previously been associated with its development. However, acute triggers of potentially life- threatening AF episodes can be more difficult to study.
According to senior study author Gregory Marcus, MD, MAS, a professor of medicine at UCSF and
associate chief of cardiology for research at UCSF Health, 'Our new data suggest that acute
alcohol consumption in the general population is associated with a higher risk of an episode of atrial
fibrillation, including a higher risk for a first episode of atrial fibrillation among individuals never
previously diagnosed with the condition.'
To analyse the incidence of AF hospital-visit rates within subsets of the California population, the
researchers broke down the data by age, sex, and race/ethnicity for patients visiting the emergency
department with AF, and used 2019 California Census data for measures of total subset population sizes.
They found the greatest association between acute alcohol consumption and hospital visits for AF
among those over age 65. According to Marcus, 'This may be kind of a wake-up call for those individuals who have an identifiable trigger for their atrial fibrillation, who we might presume would be more highly motivated to avoid alcohol consumption and subsequently to experience a lowering of their atrial fibrillation risk.'
