(Press-News.org) University of Leeds news
Embargo: 25 August 2023, 12.30pm CEST
Patients living with one of the UK’s most common heart rhythm conditions are 50% less likely to die from a heart attack or stroke than they were at the start of the millennium, new research has found.
Analysis of the health records of more than 70,000 patients newly diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF) showed that mortality from related cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases more than halved over the 16-year study period.
AF is associated with an increased risk of stroke.
The research showed that dementia now accounts for more deaths within one year of an AF diagnosis than acute stroke, heart attack and heart failure combined, demonstrating the need for more research into the link between dementia and AF.
The study team believe the lower mortality rate can be attributed to better detection and treatment for AF, which, according to the British Heart Foundation, affects more than 1.5 million people in the UK.
But the findings reveal significant health inequalities, showing that the most socioeconomically deprived patients were 22% more likely to die from AF-related conditions than people from the most affluent group.
Additionally, patients are now more likely to be diagnosed with coexisting health conditions such as diabetes, cancer and chronic kidney disease, which have greater health implications for them than AF.
Senior author Chris Gale, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Honorary Consultant Cardiologist, and Co-Director of the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics at the University of Leeds said: “Atrial fibrillation is a common and often undetected heart rhythm disorder that increases the risk of stroke. Advances in health care have now reduced the chance of having a stroke related to AF, and from dying as result of it, if AF is detected and treated.
“However, our study also reveals important disparities in care associated with deprivation and the co-existence of other illnesses. Proactively diagnosing and treating AF in these groups will likely further reduce death and disability from cardiovascular disease. Equally, for many people, AF is a marker of co-existent disease – identifying and treating these additional disease states could further improve outcome for people with AF.”
The team is now calling for randomised clinical trials to determine whether the earlier identification and treatment of AF and associated co-morbidities could effectively improve cardiovascular health.
Data analysis
The research examined data from electronic health records of 72,412 patients from a representative sample of the UK population, who had been diagnosed with AF between 2001 and 2017. The team assessed the health outcomes in patients in the first year after their AF diagnosis, and analysed changes in cause-specific mortality and hospitalisation over time and by sex, age, socioeconomic status and diagnostic care setting.
The average patient was aged 75.6. Some 48.2% of patients were women, and 61.8% had three or more comorbidities.
Over the study period, coexisting health concerns became more common, with almost 70% of newly diagnosed AF patients also having at least three comorbidities.
Mortality rates at one year post diagnosis were investigated, as well as the number of hospital admissions with an overnight stay within 1 year of diagnosis.
Over the study period, 20% of patients died from any cause within a year of being diagnosed with AF – but this declined over time.
However the researchers found that deaths due to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (strokes) more than halved over the study period. Cardiovascular deaths declined from 7.3% in 2001/02 to 3% in 2016/2017, while cerebrovascular deaths declined from 2.6% to 1.1%.
The researchers say that the lower rates of cardiovascular deaths among AF patients in the study may be partly explained by improvements in strategies to prevent heart disease, and by changes in clinical practice that could lead to people being diagnosed earlier.
By contrast, there was an increase in mortality rates from mental and neurological disorders, from 2.5% in 2001/02 to 10.1% in 2016/17. Of these deaths, 87.2% were caused by dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. The research team say that while this could be partly due to greater awareness
of dementia, it also strengthens the evidence that the relationship between AF and dementia is a pressing research priority.
Other findings include:
• Hospitalisation is common within a year of AF diagnosis, with almost two further admissions experienced by patients
• Hospitalisation rates have increased by 17% due to increasing admissions from non-cardio/cerebrovascular causes, especially in older patients
• Hospitalisation for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular causes have decreased by 38% and 28%, respectively, but for non-cardio/cerebrovascular causes hospitalisation has increased by 42%
• Older people have experienced the greatest rise in hospitalisation, with those aged 80 years or more experiencing a 39% rise in hospitalisation within a year of AF diagnosis
Health inequalities
Professor Gale said: “Patients diagnosed in hospital or from the most deprived group had worse outcomes compared with those diagnosed in the community or from the most affluent group.
“Although increased burden of comorbidities might partly explain the increased frequency of death in these groups, the persisting difference after full adjustment for these factors suggests other social and health-care factors might also contribute.
“Our previous research showed that the most deprived individuals in the UK experience an AF diagnosis at a younger age than the most affluent individuals. This discrepancy in outcomes warrants targeted strategies and healthcare resource planning.”
Lead author Jianhua Wu, Professor of Biostatistics and Health Data Science in the Queen Mary University of London’s Wolfson Institute of Population Health said: “AF is one of the most prevalent heart conditions in the UK and as such it is crucial that we understand whether or not the current management of the condition is successful. Our findings provide vital evidence about the effectiveness of treatments for this condition, while also showing that other conditions are becoming more prevalent among AF patients – potentially providing avenues for exploration of more targeted treatments.”
Further information
“Temporal trends and patterns in cause-specific mortality and hospitalisations after diagnosis of atrial fibrillation” is published in European Heart Journal on 25 August 2023.
Email University of Leeds press officer Lauren Ballinger on l.ballinger@leeds.ac.uk with media enquiries.
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is one of the largest higher education institutions in the UK, with more than 38,000 students from more than 150 different countries. We are renowned globally for the quality of our teaching and research.
We are a values-driven university, and we harness our expertise in research and education to help shape a better future for humanity, working through collaboration to tackle inequalities, achieve societal impact and drive change.
The University is a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, and plays a significant role in the Turing, Rosalind Franklin and Royce Institutes. www.leeds.ac.uk Follow University of Leeds or tag us in to coverage: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
END
Half as many AF patients dying of heart attacks and strokes in the UK
2023-08-25
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
The corona lockdowns changed the behavior of wild animals around the world
2023-08-25
In the spring of 2020, one country after another went into lockdown as Covid-19 spread across the globe. In some places, e.g. China, the civilian population was kept inside by the authorities. Other countries, like Spain, had a curfew in place for weeks, during which only short trips to the supermarket were allowed.
The lockdowns meant there were suddenly much fewer cars on the roads and people in forests and parks. While we were sitting at home watching Netflix, wild animals emerged from the bushes and edges of the forest. They ventured closer to the roads and cities that had suddenly emptied.
We know this thanks to data from GPS trackers attached to a large number of terrestrial ...
Starch discovery reaps benefits for brewing, baking and milling industries
2023-08-25
Research has brought clarity to the longstanding question of how starch granules form in the seeds of Triticeae crops – wheat, barley, and rye - unlocking diverse potential benefits for numerous industries and for human health.
Starch in wheat, maize, rice and potatoes is a vital energy-giving part of our diet and a key ingredient in many industrial applications from brewing and baking to the production of paper, glue, textiles, and construction materials.
Starch granules of different crops vary greatly in size and shape. Wheat starch (and those of other Triticeae) uniquely have two distinct types of granules: large A-type granules and smaller B-type granules.
The ratio ...
Insights from past warming: Enhanced temperature seasonality in China during the mid-Holocene
2023-08-25
Against the background of global warming, the temperature seasonality has changed obviously at global and regional scales, which has exerted significant ecological and societal impacts. As a populous country highly sensitive to climate change, China experienced an overall decreasing trend of the amplitude of the annual temperature cycle during 1961–2007. This national-scale average downward trend is likely to continue throughout the rest of the 21st century according to future projections, with a spatially robust decrease in most regions but increases at more local scales. ...
A new analytical framework assesses the risk of invasive golden mussels in water diversion projects
2023-08-25
Water diversion projects, though meant to correct unequal water distribution, unintentionally promote the growth of invasive aquatic species like the golden mussel. This fast-reproducing, substrate-clinging mussel causes biofouling, damaging structures and water quality, and leading to socio-economic and ecological issues. Yet, how environmental factors aid this colonization remains largely unclear, necessitating further research.
In a ground-breaking study published on 24 July 2023 in the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers from Tsinghua University, utilized logistic ...
Kessler Foundation team examines influence of processing speed on treatment benefits of cognitive rehabilitation for individuals with traumatic brain injury
2023-08-25
East Hanover, NJ. August 25, 2023. Scientists at Kessler Foundation reported results from a randomized controlled trial examining the influence of processing speed on treatment benefits of the Kessler Foundation modified Story Memory Technique (KF-mSMT®) in individuals with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). They found that processing speed played a role in benefit from the KF-mSMT on a list learning task, but not on a prose memory task.
Their article, “The influence of information processing speed on benefit from learning and memory rehabilitation in TBI: a sub-analysis of the TBI-MEM trial,” (do: 10.1080/02699052.2023.2216024) ...
Drexel develops new innovative model for cell and gene therapy education with grants from Bristol Myers Squibb
2023-08-25
Drexel University’s School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, in collaboration with Drexel’s College of Medicine, has received grants from the pharmaceutical company Bristol Myers Squibb, to support the education and training of diverse and talented students looking to pursue careers in cell and gene therapy.
The funding provided close to $1 million to support the creation of a new Cell and Gene Therapy Technology, Engineering, Analytics, Manufacturing, & Science academic program, known as CGT-TEAMS, that launched this summer ...
Waking up to Asian economic miracles
2023-08-25
By Alistair Jones
SMU Office of Research – American economist Milton Friedman cast a long shadow with his 1970 article, 'A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits'. For decades, it became a touchstone for free-market economies, interpreted as the sole purpose of a firm was to make money for its shareholders.
But there's an alternative dynamic, an awareness that companies also have a responsibility to stakeholders – such as employees, customers, suppliers, communities and government. This stakeholder capitalism has a corporate purpose beyond profit maximisation, aiming ...
Food recognition and logging: New research focuses on local Singaporean food
2023-08-25
By Stuart Pallister
SMU Office of Research – Two Singapore Management University researchers have embarked on a three-year project, funded by Singapore’s Ministry of Education, to ‘de-bias’ digital food recognition and develop a more robust machine learning system capable of correctly identifying Singapore’s multiracial food.
The two researchers from SMU’s School of Computing and Information Sciences, Professor Ngo Chong Wah and Associate Professor Rajesh Balan, already have extensive ...
Augusta University researcher calls for modernizing the UN's traditional approach to population replacement measurement
2023-08-25
AUGUSTA, Ga. (August 24, 2023) – In 2021, Arni S.R. Srinivasa Rao, PhD, presented a critique on the formula of net population replacement levels at the International Population Conference 2021 in Hyderabad, India. It was one of the first times he had publicly shared his latest research on population replacement commonly calculated through net reproduction rate (NRR). A blog on the same topic written by him also appeared in Population Association of America’s PAA Affairs.
Rao, the director at the Laboratory for Theory and Mathematical Modeling in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, has published ...
As Medicaid ‘unwinding’ continues and more states expand eligibility, Michigan report provides key insights
2023-08-25
At a pivotal time for Medicaid health coverage for Americans with low incomes, a report on the impacts of Michigan’s Medicaid expansion shows very positive effects, as well as opportunities for continued improvements.
The report was produced by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation as part of its evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s Medicaid expansion program. The program currently has about 1 million enrollees and was signed into law 10 years ago this September.
On the whole, the report shows that the Healthy Michigan Plan has been effective at:
reducing uninsurance,
supporting ...