Why the study?
Does environmental tobacco smoke exposure increase the risk of atrial fibrillation in never smokers?
Does environmental tobacco smoke exposure increase the risk of atrial fibrillation in never smokers?
Environmental tobacco smoke exposure is significantly associated with an increased risk of atrial fibrillation in never smokers.
ETS exposure was associated with prevalent AF; hypothesis-generating and should not yet change practice.
OBJECTIVE: This study examines the association between environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) exposure and atrial fibrillation (AF). METHODS: We examined the cross-sectional association between ETS exposure and AF in 12,021 participants (mean age: 65 ± 9.9 years; 60% women; 40% blacks) from the REasons for Geographic And Racial Differences in Stroke study who self-identified as never smokers between 2003 and 2007. RESULTS: A total of 2503 (21%) participants reported ETS exposure. In a multivariate logistic regression model adjusted for sociodemographics and potential confounders, ETS exposure was significantly associated with AF (odds ratio = 1.27, 95% confidence interval = 1.08, 1.50). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the harmful effects of ETS exposure extend to sustained arrhythmias such as AF.
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O’Neal et al. (2015) studied this question.
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