Binge drinking can trigger potentially fatal heart disorder

By Stephen Beech via SWNS

Binge drinking can trigger a potentially fatal heart rhythm disorder, warns new research.

Alcohol may kindle atrial fibrillation - a major killer that often leads to a stroke, say scientists.

Christmas, New Year’s Eve, major sporting events and other days when more people drink more booze than usual are also associated with higher numbers of hospital visits for the disorder, also known as irregular heartbeat.

The study, published in the journal Nature Cardiovascular Research, is the first to show an association between increased drinking and hospital visits for atrial fibrillation (AF) in a large group.

It is also the first to link acute alcohol consumption with an increased incidence of new-onset AF in previously undiagnosed people.

Study senior author Professor Gregory Marcus said: “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.

“Worldwide, alcohol is the most popularly consumed drug, and it now is clear that alcohol consumption is an important risk factor for atrial fibrillation."

Atrial fibrillation was mentioned as a cause of death in just over one in 400 deaths of people aged 45 or over in England between 1995 and 2010.

The condition is also a major cause of stroke, as blood clots can form inside fibrillation-prone atria, the upper chambers of the heart.

It most often arises in people with pre-existing heart conditions, but other chronic health conditions, including potentially modifiable ones such as obesity and alcohol consumption, also have previously been associated with its development.

However, Prof. Marcus explained that acute triggers of potentially life-threatening AF episodes can be more difficult to study.

He recently led a study of 100 AF patients about to undergo surgery for the condition and identified physiological changes to the heart triggered by elevated blood alcohol.

Although the researchers observed no AF episodes during that short study, the alcohol-induced changes they observed in the heart had previously been associated with an elevated risk of AF.

In a subsequent study of acute alcohol consumption in a different set of 100 patients diagnosed with AF, Prof Marcus and his team found that episodes of AF were associated with self-reported drinking shortly beforehand.

In the new study, the team first identified days when people are more likely to drink more.

The scientists analyzed data from more than 36,000 people from 59 countries who used a commercially available, Bluetooth-enabled breathalyzer device - a total of over 1.2 million alcohol measurements - and looked for days of the year when the participants used their devices more often or had higher breathalyzer measurements.

The researchers determined that the breathalyzer users consumed more alcohol than usual on eight different holidays or days of recurrent national events: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Super Bowl Sunday, initiation of daylight-saving time, July 4, Christmas, FIFA World Cup and Father’s Day.

Prof. Marcus, of the University of California, San Francisco, said: “We wanted to test the hypothesis that during the dates and events we first identified as being associated with elevated alcohol consumption in the breathalyzer users, we would also see more hospital visits for atrial fibrillation.

“This would imply that there is a nearly immediate relationship between excess alcohol consumption and more atrial fibrillation within the population.”

The researchers reviewed official records of California hospital emergency room visits from January 1, 2005, to December 30, 2015, and identified visits coded for a diagnosis AF. They compared the weeks associated with greater alcohol consumption to all other weeks of the year to see if there were more AF visits on days when people are known to drink more.

They found that there was a "significantly elevated" number of hospital visits for AF when all those empirically identified events were compared to all other days of the year.

The results remained significant when comparing all other days of the year to each of New Year’s Day, initiation of Daylight Savings time, Super Bowl Sunday, and Christmas alone.

Prof Marcus said: “A ‘negative control’ analysis examining another common heart rhythm problem - supraventricular tachycardia - did not reveal the same relationships, suggesting there is something indeed uniquely important about the alcohol as a risk factor for acute atrial fibrillation, rather than alcohol as a general determinant of a medical visit or even all heart rhythm problems."

The researchers also found the greatest association between acute alcohol consumption and hospital visits for AF among those over age 65.

On the recurrent days associated with elevated drinking, the researchers identified an even greater percentage increase in hospital visits for AF among those not previously undiagnosed, in comparison to the increase in hospital visits on the same days among those previously diagnosed with the condition.

Prof Marcus says the findings suggest that many new cases of AF are triggered specifically by acute alcohol consumption.

He added: “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."