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Despite the purported cardiovascular benefits of light drinking, small amounts of alcohol were still linked with incident atrial fibrillation (Afib) in a large observational study.
Increased Afib risk was observed with just one daily drink containing 12 g ethanol (HR 1.16, 95% CI 1.11-1.22), whether the beverage was 120 mL of wine (four-fifths of one standard glass), 330 mL of beer (nearly a can s worth), or 40 mL of spirits (roughly one shot), reported Renate Schnabel, MD, of University Heart & Vascular Center Hamburg, Germany, and colleagues.
Even very low alcohol consumption, at 2 g per day, was marginally associated with Afib risk over nearly 14 years of follow-up (HR 1.02, 95% CI 1.0-1.04), they wrote in the
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COVID-19 has had an indirect toll on heart health around the world, as cardiovascular testing volumes plummeted and cardiovascular deaths rose in 2020, researchers found.
CDC data revealed that in the first U.S. coronavirus epicenters like New York, the number of people who died from ischemic heart disease and hypertension increased dramatically after mid-March compared with historical controls from the year before.
It remains unclear whether the excess deaths were related to people avoiding necessary medical care for fear of contracting SARS-CoV-2 or reflected other factors, such as undiagnosed COVID-19, according to study authors led by Rishi Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, reporting in the