A-Fib then and now?

[Simusid]

Earlier today my office mate (42 YOM) said he felt crappy and he looked pale and clammy. I felt no radial pulse and took his bp (about 92/70, ish), his pulse was at least 120. This resolved itself in about 10 minutes where he had a strong radial pulse and a slower but irregular heart rate. He went to the Dr. at lunchtime and came back with an EKG that looks like A-fib.

My question is not about him, but it got me thinking. A-Fib is the most common cardiac arrythmia, I'm pretty sure that is true. Was this true 30+ years ago too? Obesity and diabetes are an (intertwined) epidemic. Is there an "epidemic" of a-fib too? Have the rates of A-fib increased in the last decades?

 

[RocketMedic]

IIRC, yes. I think it's a consequence of Bigger/Fatter/Slower living.

 

[VFlutter]

IIRC, yes. I think it's a consequence of Bigger/Fatter/Slower living.

Yes, it's the most common. Bigger/fatter = hypertension which is a major risk factor for A Fib. Another risk factor is sleep apnea which is more common in obese individuals.

 

[Meursault]

A quick look at the literature suggests the major reason for the increased prevalence of a-fib is an aging population; risk increases greatly as you pass 65, though that's probably not completely independent of cardiac risk factors. Work with the Framingham Heart Study data found rapid increases in incidence as you age and a lifetime risk of 0.16 even in the absence of major cardiac problems.
We're also getting better at keeping people with sick hearts alive, and we're doing more invasive cardiac procedures to do so, both of which increase risk.
And you wonder why there's a sudden glut of new anticoagulants.

 

[JakeEMTP]

1. Baby boomers and the aging population

2. Increased obesity

3. Increased media sources to make data available. Now you can get it on a snipet on Yahoo rather than going the library and looking up the stats.

4. And, what Mr. Conspiracy said.

 

[mycrofft]

Better EKG software=>more diragnoses. Two iterations of software upgrades and a change of MD changed my Dx from "occasional PVC's and PAT" to "atrial fib". The missed diagnoses either resulted in an accidentally correct Rx, or the pt died and the heart doesn't havd a "black box" to show what killed ms]ost arrests...or the pt fell asleep at the wheel an crashed, o committede suicide because (s)he had lost the wll to live such a dragged out lifestyle, etc etc.

A while go it was that way with Wolff-Parkinson-White reentrant issues, all of the sudden we were diagnosing them and recognizing a syndrome.