Limited data suggest that athletes may have a higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation
(AF); however, there has been no large prospective assessment of the relation between
vigorous exercise and AF. Logistic regression analyses stratified by time were used
to assess the association between frequency of vigorous exercise and risk of developing
AF in 16,921 apparently healthy men in the Physicians' Health Study. During 12 years
of follow-up, 1,661 men reported developing AF. With increasing frequency of vigorous
exercise (0, 1, 1 to 2, 3 to 4, 5 to 7 days/week), multivariate relative risks for
the full cohort were 1.0 (referent), 0.90, 1.09, 1.04, and 1.20 (p = 0.04). This risk
was not significantly increased when exercise habits were updated or in models excluding
variables that may be in the biological pathway through which exercise influences
AF risk. In subgroup analyses, this increased risk was observed only in men <50 years
of age (1.0, 0.94, 1.20, 1.05, 1.74, p <0.01) and joggers (1.0, 0.91, 1.03, 1.30,
1.53, p <0.01), where risks remained increased in all analyses. In conclusion, frequency
of vigorous exercise was associated with an increased risk of developing AF in young
men and joggers. This risk decreased as the population aged and was offset by known
beneficial effects of vigorous exercise on other AF risk factors.
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 23, 2009
Accepted:
January 31,
2009
Received in revised form:
January 31,
2009
Received:
November 24,
2008
Footnotes
This study was supported by Grants CA34944, CA40360, HL26490, HL34595, and CA097193 from the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.
Identification
Copyright
© 2009 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
