Coffee consumption tied to incident Atrial Fibrillation, study suggests

United States: Researchers have highlighted an association between coffee consumption and incident Atrial Fibrillation (AF) in a new study. According to the research middle-aged and older adults' risk of developing new-onset atrial fibrillation (AF) tended to increase with the amount of coffee they drank, but not consistently so.However, risk was more than doubled among those drinking the greatest amounts.

The study findings have been published in the American Journal of Cardiology.

The study was conducted to investigate to find the potential dose-dependent relation between coffee intake and AF incidence in a multi-ethnic setting.

There are previous studies comprising White populations, but there is a limitation of data regarding the exploration of dose dependency.

To address the gap, as mentioned earlier, researchers analyzed the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis data, a prospective cohort study.

The lead researcher is Ojasav Sehrawat from the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

The study points are:

• There were three groups in the primary analysis.
• The groups were non-consumers, 1 to 3 cups/month, and ≥1 cup/week.
• The researchers stratified the cohort into nine gradual increments for coffee consumption groups for the secondary analysis.
• A multivariable cox proportional hazards regression model was adjusted for six potential confounders, including age, gender, smoking, hypertension, diabetes and alcohol.
• A higher incidence of AF was recorded in subjects who drank ≥1 cup of coffee/per week; the adjusted hazard ratio was 1.40. (compared to non-consumers).
• In the group consuming most coffee (≥6 cups/day), AF incidence was highest, 9.8%.

The Stratification based on race/ethnicity indicates the results may be driven by White and Hispanic rather than Black or Chinese-American subgroups.

The researcher concluded there is an association between the consumption of coffee and the incidence of AF.

There are several limitations of the study which include a) Coffee intake was self-reported and collected only once at baseline.b) Results may have been affected by residual and unmeasured confounding. c) Sample size may have been insufficient to detect associations in some subgroups.

Further reading:

Sehrawat O, Mehra NS, Kowlgi NG, Hodge DO, Lee JZ, Egbe AC, DeSimone CV, Madhavan M, Siontis KC, Noseworthy PA, Asirvatham SJ, Deshmukh AJ. Association Between Coffee Consumption and Incident Atrial Fibrillation (from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis [MESA]). Am J Cardiol. 2023 Jan 1;186:5-10. doi:10.1016/j.amjcard.2022.10.025. Epub 2022 Nov 3. PMID: 36334435