St. Vincent Heartbeat: Alcohol and Atrial Fibrillation
By: Jancey Sheats, KARK 4 News
Updated: November 16, 2012
Previous
studies have shown that a drinking binge can trigger an episode of
atrial fibrillation, which is when the heart's upper chambers begin to
quiver chaotically instead of contracting normally.
Now, a new
study suggests when people who already have heart issues drink even a
moderate amount of alcohol, it increases their risk of atrial
fibrillation.
The study included more than 30,000 older adults who either had clogged arteries, a history of stroke or diabetes complications.
Over about
five years, people who drank occasionally or not at all developed atrial
fibrillation at a rate of about 1.5% each year.
For more moderate drinkers, the rate was 1.7% and for heavy drinkers, it was 2.1%.
Dr. Eleanor
Kennedy, a cardiologist at St. Vincent Heart Clinic Arkansas says there
are several things that need to be taken into consideration.
"The thing to
keep in mind about this study is number one, the age of the patients.
Everyone had to be at least 55-years of age. Number two, the patients in
this study either already had heart disease,
vascular disease or diabetes with complications. So, it's not the
population as a whole. It's positively true that previous studies have
shown that relatively small amounts of alcohol intake are generally
associated with a little bit less heart disease than
no alcohol intake."
In general,
experts say if you're already a moderate drinker, which is up to one
drink a day for women and two for men, it's probably okay to keep it up.
But for people
with certain chronic health problems, you should limit your alcoholic
beverages to no more than one drink per week and binge drinking should
be avoided all together.
