A new study published recently in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) claims that the more a person smokes, the greater risk they have of developing atrial fibrillation- a heart rhythm disorder.
The study reports that there is a 14% increase in the risk of developing atrial fibrillation for every ten cigarettes that one might smokes per day. The study showed that there is a linear dose-response relationship between the two- so the more cigarettes you smoke, the more likely you are to suffer from atrial fibrillation.
When this data was compared to that of people who had never smoked, it showed that people who were current smoked were at a 32% higher risk of atrial and ever smokers (current smokers and former smokers) were at a 21% higher risk. Former smokers were comparatively at a lower risk- only 9 percent- which proved the dose-response relationship.
Dr Dagfinn Aune, study author and postdoctoral researcher at Imperial College London, UK, and also an associate professor at Bjørknes University College in Oslo, Norway said, “If you smoke, stop smoking and if you don’t smoke, don’t start. We found that smokers are at increased risk of atrial fibrillation, but the risk is reduced considerably in those who quit.”
Smoking is an addiction that often proves to be lethal. Lifetime smokers have a 50 percent chance of an early death due to smoking. Less than half people who have been lifetime smokers will continue to smoke until they die. While the rate of smoking is on a decline in Europe, it is still very common and a large number of women, adolescents and socially disadvantaged groups are smoking today.
Atrial fibrillation is the most common form of arrhythmia- which is an heart rhythm disorder. Approximately 20-30% strokes are caused by atrial fibrillation and it also increases the risk of premature death. Reports show that one in every four middle-aged adults will be suffering from atrial fibrillation. By 2030 there will be 14-17 patients of atrial fibrillation in the European Union alone.
Not a lot of studies done in the past focused on finding if there’s a dose-response relationship between the number of cigarettes being smoked and the risk of developing atrial fibrillation. The authors of this study decided to conduct a meta-analysis to find out if there’s a relation between the two by analyzing 29 prospective studies from Europe, North America, Australia and Japan which totaled to 39,282 incident cases of atrial fibrillation in 677,785 participants.
Many European guidelines recommend people to not consume tobacco in any form- almost all report that all types of smoked tobacco, even low-tar, also known as “mild” or “light”, and filtered cigarettes, cigars etc. are harmful.
“Our results provide further evidence of the health benefits of quitting smoking and, even better, to never start smoking in the first place. This is important from a public health perspective to pr-vent atrial fibrillation and many other chronic diseases”, added Aune.
She suggests that more research should be done to see how long should one discontinue to smoke to reduce the risk of developing atrial fibrillation, and whether it could also affect people who had never smoked.