honestly, I don't want to know anything about this subject :)
scare me to pieces
Charlene

I haven't read the study yet. Just wanted to tell you that my mother had afib for many years along with hypertension and congestive heart failure. She lived to age 94 and was sharp as a tack and able to live on her own until the last few weeks of her life.
I hope you find that reassuring.

I do think that when they say afib won't kill you it means it is not a sudden death type of arrythmia. It seems logical to me that it would have some impact on mortality, especially uncontrolled afib.

Marikay, I appreciate that, thank you. I have visions of myself drooling in the hall of a nursing home at age 60.

I had several months of afib free time, and it's back with a vengeance. I've been slipping in and out of afib daily since Friday night. It's annoying and frightening. Of course now I'm googling like crazy and not liking what I'm finding.

Anyway, I'm going on a two week holter monitor next week and they've taken me off bystolic and on metopropol. Of course when I was in the ep's office my EKG showed nothing. Now my heart is bouncing all over the place again.

I read that entire study, thank you. Keep in mind, even after a heart attack or heart surgery, the most common cause of death is an arrhythmia. As they say, theres lies, damned lies and statistics. From this study , we healthy folk with no structural heart issues are lumped in.

"The clinical risk factors for AF include advancing age, diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, rheumatic and nonrheumatic valve disease, and myocardial infarction"
First of all, I would like to believe that someone 55 would have less chance of mortality than the 94 yr old in this study.
Secondly, just because AF was listed as cause of death, what other pre existing condition may have contributed to mortality?
Lastly, patients have died from meds and surgery for AF, with AF listed as "cause of death".

Framingham Heart Study was started in 1948 and lasted until 1998. Afib was associated with a higher death rate, particularly in the first 30 days and first year of onset in patients 55-94 years old and was confined to patients with structural heart disease. It is uncertain whether AF is associated with excess mortality independent of associated cardiac conditions and risk factors.
After elimination of 30-day mortality, AF remained associated with a 50% greater mortality in women. However, in men who survived 30 days after AF was diagnosed, AF was no longer significantly associated with increased mortality, suggesting that in men the worsened survival with AF was heavily influenced by early mortality. Another potential explanation is that the increased mortality of AF was confined to subjects with structural heart disease or more severe clinically evident cardiovascular events.
Most of the follow-up occurred before the availability of echocardiography and the widespread use of anticoagulants and anti-arrhythmics for AF. The lack of routine echocardiography undoubtedly contributed to some misclassification of valvular heart disease. Moreover, we have insufficient data to comment on whether the mortality of AF is altered by anticoagulants or anti-arrhythmics,
Putting this study in perspective: The study is old. The report came out in 1998. It only included those with structural heart disease. Various studies showed insignificant increases in mortality directly attributable to afib. But we can all agree, afib isnt going to add years to your life, unless maybe you change your lifestyle habits as a result of diagnosis. After 30 days, for men, afib is not a significant factor in mortality (what can be directly tied to the afib). After 1 year, it is less significant for everyone. Not using anticoagulants is a big factor for increased mortality, particularly in the earlier years before stroke risk was widely recognized. The technology to identify other medical conditions like valve problems was limited throughout most of the study. Afib is a complicating factor if you have certain other heart problems. They do not go into which patients died in other words, they dont know if only the ones with valvular problems versus the ones with lone afib died earlier. Also, the cause of afib is a factor, considering that such now treatable things such as sleep apnea were not even diagnosed, let alone treated during most of the years the study occurred. As was noted byHwkmn and Dr. Mandrola numerous times, the treatment is usually worse than the disease/condition itself. Afib is not a singular disease. It is a condition as a result of many possible causes, most known, some not.

petey

Thanks Petey, I needed that.

Thanks. That's why I asked. The studies were quite alarming, but that sets my mind at ease.