How common AF really is...?

At the beginning of my visiting this forum, some 10 years ago, by this time under the name "Cinkler", I have suggested that, despite the percentage of diagnosed people with AF is usaly several % of the population, the real percentage may be far larger, maybe 10-20% . Some of the forum members have jumped over me (not literally, lol) stating that it is far too much.

If I have understood the speech of prof. Auricchio correctly, the study on the cohort of 10.000 people has shown that this percentage was 40%. So, it seems that there are many more of us, AFibers, but the people are mostly asymptomatic and never get to the point to be aware, that they live with AF. Here the link:

youtube.com/watch?v=jY2_wSm...(Not working as expected?)

[jeanjeannie50]

It's strange how important information like this, regarding AF, is not better publicised!

Jean

[CDreamer]

Absolutely - we who know we have AF are in many ways the lucky ones as so many people don’t know as they are asymptomatic and therefore are not given the option of prophylactic anticoagulants. The AFA here in the UK constantly campaign for screening as a regular health check by GPs and hospitals and have organised events all over the country, including in our Parliament and Cabinet - where they found one person with undiagnosed AF. An ex Prime Minister was known to have AF.

[KentAndrew in reply to CDreamer]

My Podiatrist Practice screens patients for arrhythmias as part of their regular check-ups using a Doppler device. They have diagnosed asymptotic AFibs.

It’s reassuring when I visit and hear my NSR heart beat.

[confused71 in reply to KentAndrew]

Same here I was diagnosed with Afib and heart failure --had i not gone to Podiatrist that day I would never have known no symptoms that made me thinkI had heart problems

[Hidden]

To all, who respond - I am not able to respond to other people comments. I do not know the reason, maybe the bug of the software. So, the only thing I can do is to like the comments, to show that they are noticed and appreciated!

[BobD Volunteer]

I was one of the people who undertook random testing a few years ago. I used a device which was available at that time (not Kardia) to do ECG at two local medical centres over two days and tested 48 people finding 7 new unknown cases of AF amongst people in the waiting rooms. Whilst that is well below the 40% suggested it did show that AF was more prevalent than expected. Flapjack and Rosy's group also used Kardia in a shopping mall and found smiliar numbers I believe.

[Hidden]

To BobD:

Never knew that you have done this! Nicely done!

But, there is a catch when AF is in question - from 48 tested people, 7 had non diagnosed AF. You caught them because they were in AF when measured. Because of paroxysmal AF cases, maybe many of the rest had AF bouts from time to time, but had the luck to be in NSR at the time of testing. Real data could be gathered only through long time monitoring of large cohort of people, what may be expensive...

After all the research I have done in the past decade, now, my guessing is that the percentage may be about 70%! Large number, I know...

[BobD Volunteer in reply to Hidden]

The main reason for AFA's wish for screening for AF is stroke prevention.

About ten years ago UK was very near the bottom of the list of European countries who had a good stroke prevention protocol. UK doctors seemed highly reluctant to prescribe anticoagulants and it was estimated that 8000 strokes a year could be prevented if we could change that mind set. I know that some parts of the UK are good at this (Bradford for example led by our own Dr Matt Fay) but others still abysmal.

The battle continues.

[pusillanimous in reply to Hidden]

In my family it's 100% Myself, my 4 sisters and we suspect our late father have (had)it !

[Singwell in reply to Hidden]

Wouldn't that depend on the sample though? Haven't watched the video yet but the age range and possibly social/financial status would be important factors to consider too. Looking forward to watching this.

[secondtry]

Thanks Steelheart interesting info and replies. If undisclosed AFers without anticoagulant treatment are higher than thought then my interpretation is that by extension the stroke risk of those not on ACs is lower.....I hope that makes sense 🤔

[Hidden]

To Secondtry:

So true! Unbelievably large number of people live with arrhythmia and never get to know it. My father had it, my mother had it, even my son, who is 40 years old, has arrhythmia from time to time (I caught his AF by accident, when measuring his BP), and he also has no symptoms at all. Of course, it makes problems to determine which people had the stroke and had also the AF as a problem. The data of "5 times larger stroke risk" is without solid background and, if you ask me, serves mostly to scare the people and make them take anticoagulants.

In elderly age, it seams to be kinda normal to have arrhythmia. If a heart beats once every second (60 bpm), than it makes 86400 contractions during a single day, 31,5 million of contractions during one year and, when we reach 70 yo, it has already performed 2,2 billion contractions. Jesus Maria, and all of it was initiated by a small nervous nod, consisting of living cells. Is it strange, that it starts making mistakes and causing arrhythmia? Not, in my opinion, it was rather to be expected, than to be surprised with.

I used to drive an old car and it also made problems prior to the end of exploitation..., lol.