RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Chocolate intake and risk of clinically apparent atrial fibrillation: the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study
JF Heart
JO Heart
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Cardiovascular Society
SP heartjnl-2016-310357
DO 10.1136/heartjnl-2016-310357
A1 Elizabeth Mostofsky
A1 Martin Berg Johansen
A1 Anne Tjønneland
A1 Harpreet S Chahal
A1 Murray A Mittleman
A1 Kim Overvad
YR 2017
UL http://heart.bmj.com/content/early/2017/05/01/heartjnl-2016-310357.abstract
AB Objective To evaluate the association between chocolate intake and incident clinically apparent atrial fibrillation or flutter (AF).Methods The Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study is a large population-based prospective cohort study. The present study is based on 55 502 participants (26 400 men and 29 102 women) aged 50–64 years who had provided information on chocolate intake at baseline. Incident cases of AF were ascertained by linkage with nationwide registries.Results During a median of 13.5 years there were 3346 cases of AF. Compared with chocolate intake less than once per month, the rate of AF was lower for people consuming 1–3 servings/month (hazard ratio (HR) 0.90, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.82 to 0.98), 1 serving/week (HR 0.83, 95% CI 0.74 to 0.92), 2–6 servings/week (HR 0.80, 95% CI 0.71 to 0.91) and ≥1 servings/day (HR 0.84, 95% CI 0.65 to 1.09; p-linear trend <0.0001), with similar results for men and women.Conclusions Accumulating evidence indicates that moderate chocolate intake may be inversely associated with AF risk, although residual confounding cannot be ruled out.