Did you know smoking and alcohol consumption can lead to a lifetime of heart problems?

Recent research has found that smoking and alcohol consumption can lead to atrial fibrillation which is an irregular and increased heart rate. This can easily lead to a stroke, dementia, heart failure and other complications. The results showed that in individuals aged 55 and above the overall lifetime risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) was 37%. “We examined the lifetime risk of atrial fibrillation, which measures the cumulative risk of developing a disease during the remainder of an individual’s life,” said study co-author Ludovic Trinquart, Assistant Professor at Boston University School of Public Health in Massachusetts, US.


“It is essential to look at lifetime risks in addition to short-term risks, because it may enable early identification of individuals at higher long-term risk and facilitate lifestyle change counseling,” he continued. “Studying atrial fibrillation is important because it is emerging as a global epidemic; it also imposes considerable socioeconomic burden. Atrial fibrillation hospitalisations follow an exponential increase and have surpassed heart failure admissions,” he concluded.