PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Elizabeth Mostofsky
AU  - Martin Berg Johansen
AU  - Anne Tjønneland
AU  - Harpreet S Chahal
AU  - Murray A Mittleman
AU  - Kim Overvad
TI  - Chocolate intake and risk of clinically apparent atrial fibrillation: the Danish Diet, Cancer, and Health Study
AID  - 10.1136/heartjnl-2016-310357
DP  - 2017 Aug 01
TA  - Heart
PG  - 1163--1167
VI  - 103
IP  - 15
4099  - http://heart.bmj.com/content/103/15/1163.short
4100  - http://heart.bmj.com/content/103/15/1163.full
SO  - Heart2017 Aug 01; 103
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.