How just one glass of alcohol can disrupt your heartbeat!

If a glass full of beer, wine or any other alcohol is your go-to drink, then you need to know this. Having just one glass of alcohol can expose you to the risk of atrial fibrillation. Atrial fibrillation is a condition related to irregular heartbeats that can interrupt the normal flow of blood to your heart.

New data presented by the researchers at the American College of Cardiology found that alcohol appears to have an immediate effect on the heartbeat that might cause an episode of atrial fibrillation.

The data revealed that just one glass of wine, beer or other alcoholic beverage doubled the risk of an episode of disrupted heartbeat occurring within the next four hours. Among people having two or more drinks in one sitting, there was a more than threefold higher chance of experiencing atrial fibrillation.

According to the alcohol sensor placed on participants, a 0.1 per cent increase in infrared blood alcohol concentration over the previous 12 hours was associated with an approximate 40 percent higher odds of an atrial fibrillation episode.

"Alcohol is the most commonly consumed drug in the world, and there is still a lot we don't understand about what it does to our bodies and, in particular, our hearts," said Gregory M. Marcus, MD, cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and the study's lead author.

"Based on our data, we found that alcohol can acutely influence the likelihood that an episode of AFib will occur within a few hours, and the more alcohol consumed, the higher the risk of having an event," Gregory added.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm disorder. A patient usually experiences a rapid, chaotic and fluttery heartbeat. Some may not feel anything, while others might face severe shortness of breath, fatigue, fainting or a sensation that the heart is beating out of control. Over time, atrial fibrillation can lead to heart failure, stroke and dementia if untreated.

Researchers enrolled 100 patients with intermittent atrial fibrillation, which tends to go away within a short period of time. Patients in the study were 64 years old on average. Each participant was fitted with a wearable heart monitor that continuously tracked their heart rhythm and an ankle sensor to objectively detect when more than two to three drinks were consumed on a given occasion. Participants were asked to press a button on the heart monitor each time they had an alcoholic drink. Fingerstick blood tests measuring alcohol consumption in the previous few weeks were also used to corroborate self-reported drinking events.

Overall, 56 people, that is more than half of them, had an episode of atrial fibrillation during the four-week study.

This is the first study to objectively demonstrate and quantify the real-time relationship between alcohol consumption and disruptive heartbeat episodes. The data makes it very clear that more is not better when it comes to alcohol. It concludes that those who drink more have a higher risk of atrial fibrillation episodes which can also lead to heart attack and death.

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