Not sure why men think trying to out drink each other and pounding down beer after beer is a manly thing to do, but it’s not. And having an dysrhythmia such as atrial fibrillation (AF) does not make you a tough dude either. Worse, research led by UC San Francisco and published in Nature Cardiovascular Research showed they are probably linked to each other.
In the study, researchers first identified days where people are most likely to drink more. To do this, they analyzed data from over 36,000 people who use commercial Bluetootjh-enabled breathalyzers. Tracking the data, they found the eight holiday/event days where more than usual alcohol was consumed: Martin Luther King Jr Day, New Years Day, Super Bowl Sunday, beginning of daylight-savings time, Christmas, July 4th, FIFA World Cup, and Father’s Day.
The team then reviewed records of hospital ER visits in the state of California from 2005 to 2015 where AF was the reason for the visit.
When the two data sets were analyzed together, researchers found that there was significant increase in number of AF as reason to go to the ER on the above identified holiday/event days. This was particularly true for those over the age of 65.
Interestingly, the researchers found that amongst those events and holidays, there is an even greater increase in hospital ER visits for those who were not previously diagnosed with AF. Therefore, this finding suggests that AF can be specifically triggered by acute high-level alcohol intake.
To create a control, researchers also looked at another common dysrhythmia, superventricular tachycardia, and did not find an association with increased alcohol consumption.
“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,” stated study’s author, Gregory Marcus.
It’s not to say don’t enjoy a sip or so on occasions, but do not let media and culture convince you alcohol is healthy for you or that it’s a masculine thing to do, especially binge drinking. Alcohol has been identified as a direct toxin on the heart. AF is the most common dysrhythmia and leads to other medical problems like congestive heart failure and stroke.
Or even better, don’t drink at all. You really don’t need it.
S Aung et al. Population-level analyses of alcohol consumption as a predictor of acute atrial fibrillatoion episodes. Nature Cardiovascular Research 2022. 1; 23-27. doi.org/10.1038/s44161-021-00003-7
