Chocolate consumption has been shown to protect against various cardiovascular end
points; however, little is known about the association between chocolate consumption
and incident atrial fibrillation (AF). Therefore, we prospectively examined the association
between chocolate consumption and incident AF in a cohort of 18,819 US male physicians.
Chocolate consumption was ascertained from 1999 to 2002 through a self-administered
food frequency questionnaire. Incident AF was ascertained through yearly follow-up
questionnaires. Cox regression was used to estimate relative risks of AF. The average
age at baseline was 66 years (±9.1). During a mean follow-up of 9.0 years (±3.0),
2,092 cases of AF occurred. Using <1 per month of chocolate consumption as the reference
group, multivariable adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence interval) for AF were
1.04 (0.93 to 1.18), 1.10 (0.96 to 1.25), 1.14 (0.99 to 1.31), and 1.05 (0.89 to 1.25)
for chocolate intake of 1 to 3 per month and 1, 2 to 4, and ≥5 per week (p for trend
0.25), respectively. In a secondary analysis, there was no evidence of effect modification
by adiposity (p interaction = 0.71) or age (p interaction = 0.26). In conclusion,
our data did not support an association between chocolate consumption and risk of
AF in US male physicians.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: May 20, 2015
Accepted:
May 14,
2015
Received in revised form:
May 14,
2015
Received:
April 27,
2015
Footnotes
See page 565 for disclosure information.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
