Conversely, caffeine and lack of sleep do not seem to have any effect on heart rate.
- It takes a complete medical examination, and several cardiac tests to detect the arrhythmia.
- The management of arrhythmia is based on medication, changing certain lifestyle habits or surgery.
- About 700,000 people are affected in France by atrial fibrillation.
Our heart usually beats between 50 and 100 times per minute. When the beats are irregular, it is called cardiac arrhythmia. This pathology can have several causes: lesions linked to a heart attack, diabetes, stress or even sleep apnea. In JAMA Cardiology, a research team from the University of California – San Diego shows that the origins of the disorder are not always those that we believe. They tested several hypotheses with a group of volunteers to prove it.
What is cardiac arrhythmia?
Arrhythmia can manifest itself in several ways: it can slow down or speed up the heart rate. In the first case, it is brachycardia, when the heartbeat is less than 60 per minute. Conversely, if there are more than 100 heartbeats per minute, it is tachycardia. Cardiac fibrillation is characterized by disordered contractions. These different pathologies can be manifested by shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, palpitations or chest pain. Sometimes affected individuals experience no symptoms.
What are the supposed triggers?
450 people took part in this research. They used an electrocardiogram recording device as well as a phone app to note potential triggers for their arrhythmia: drinking alcohol or consuming caffeine, sleeping on their left side or not getting enough sleep, eating a large meals, a cool drink, or sticking to a particular diet, exercise, or anything else they thought was involved in their arrhythmia. Caffeine was perceived by the participants as one of the main causes of arrhythmia, in fact the data shows that there is no link between the two. Research has even shown that coffee may have a protective effect on heart rate.
deadly troubles
According to the authors’ conclusions, alcohol is the only trigger: during the study, the consumption of alcoholic beverages was systematically associated with a dysregulation of the heart rhythm. They recall that these cardiovascular disorders contribute to more than 150,000 deaths each year in the United States. This mortality rate has been steadily increasing for twenty years.
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