By Leland Kim, from UCSF.edu
Note: This research was supported by CTSI grant number TL1 RR024129, and CTSI services provided to co-authors include Consultation Services and Training in Clinical Research.
The term “holiday heart syndrome” was coined in a 1978 study to describe patients with atrial fibrillation who experienced a common and potentially dangerous form of heart palpitation after excessive drinking, which can be common during the winter holiday season. The symptoms usually went away when the revelers stopped drinking. Now, research from UCSF builds on that finding, establishing a stronger causal link between alcohol consumption and serious palpitations in patients with atrial fibrillation, the most common form of arrhythmia.
In a paper scheduled to be published August 1 in the American Journal of Cardiology, the UCSF researchers report that people with atrial fibrillation had almost a four and a half times greater chance of having an episode if they were consuming alcohol than if they were not.
“One of the remaining big unknowns is why or how this happens,” said senior author Gregory Marcus, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the UCSF Division of Cardiology. “In a previous publication, we suggested that there was an effect on the electrical activity of the atrium that leads to these arrhythmias but we do need additional studies to prove that.”
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