Even if you’re not particularly nervous, if you feel like your heart is beating fast and irregularly, you may suspect atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is a type of arrhythmia and is a disease that causes discomfort in the patient’s daily life as it is accompanied by symptoms such as chest pressure, headache and breathing difficulties due to strong palpitations.
If you feel pressure while your heart is beating fast, you may have atrial fibrillation | Source: Getty Image Bank
Life-threatening atrial fibrillation can be caused by lifestyle habits
Atrial fibrillation refers to a condition in which the atrium does not contract normally and trembles slightly. It is a disease that is easy to miss because it often appears in the early stages as a seizure and then disappears. However, if the symptoms are severe, it can cause fainting or heart attack, and if it persists for a long time, it is a dangerous disease that can lead to a stroke due to the formation of blood clots. In fact, research findings show that patients with atrial fibrillation are five times more likely to suffer a stroke.
Atrial fibrillation can occur if you suffer from conditions such as valve disease, coronary heart disease, hypertension, heart failure, and congenital heart disease. In addition, it often develops due to aging, and according to statistics from the Korean Arrhythmia Society, atrial fibrillation is known to occur in more than 20% of people over the age of 85.
Furthermore, atrial fibrillation can be caused by poor lifestyle habits: excessive drinking, smoking, lack of exercise, overeating and obesity are considered risk factors for atrial fibrillation. It has also recently attracted attention as research findings indicate that drinks containing artificial sweeteners, popular for their “zero calorie” properties, may increase the risk of developing atrial fibrillation.
Drinks containing artificial sweeteners increase the risk of atrial fibrillation by 20%.
A research team led by Dr. Ningjian Wang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China recently published research findings showing that consuming large quantities of beverages containing added sugars or artificial sweeteners over a long period of time increases the risk of atrial fibrillation.
The research team followed and analyzed data from 201,856 healthy adults aged 37 to 73 registered in the UK Biobank for an average of 10 years. Although they did not have atrial fibrillation at the time of data recording, atrial fibrillation was confirmed to be present in a total of 9,362 people during the 10-year follow-up period.
An analysis of their eating habits showed that if you drink more than 2 liters of diet drinks containing artificial sweeteners per week, your risk of developing atrial fibrillation increases by 20%. Furthermore, drinking 2 liters of sugary drinks increased the risk of atrial fibrillation by 10%. On the other hand, the results showed that drinking less than 1 liter of orange or vegetable juice prepared without added sugar, or about 113 ml per day, reduced the risk of atrial fibrillation by 8%.
Specifically, it was found that if you smoked, which is another risk factor affecting the development of atrial fibrillation, and drank more than 2 liters of sugar-containing drinks, the risk of atrial fibrillation increased by 31%. On the other hand, no significant changes were observed in smokers who successfully quit or in the case of non-smokers.
“It is unclear why artificially sweetened drinks cause atrial fibrillation, but there are several hypotheses, including insulin resistance or the body’s response to sweeteners such as sucralose, aspartame, saccharin and acesulfame,” said l lead author Dr. Ninjiang Wang. “We generally consume many different types of drinks, we can’t say for sure that one drink is better than another, but considering the potential health risks, it is best to avoid drinks with artificial sweeteners or added sugars,” he explained.
The research findings were recently published in the American Heart Association (AHA) international journal, “Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.”
<저작권©언론사 하이닥, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>
#Calorie #Drinks #Heart #Beat #Fast #Atrial #Fibrillation #Warning
