Scientists: 25% of people with arrhythmia are under 65 years old!

Scientists have come to a shocking conclusion that 25% of patients with a heart rhythm disorder are people under the age of 65.

The University of Pittsburgh press service indicated on Monday, April 22, that this conclusion was reached during the analysis of the medical records of 67,000 patients.

US cardiologists previously believed that the proportion of young people suffering from arrhythmia, a serious disorder of heart rhythms, has now been greatly underestimated. In fact, it is not 2%, as scientists previously thought, but more than 25% of the total number of patients infected with this disease.

Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Aditya Bhonsale, said: “For a long time, cardiologists believed that arrhythmia was a rare disease among patients under the age of 65, and at the same time it rarely leads to serious consequences for their health, and it has not been proven.” This assumption is confirmed by real data obtained during the study.

Bonsall and his colleagues reached this conclusion after analyzing the medical records of 67,000 patients who sought help at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Clinic in the years 2010-2019. The scientists analyzed the number of times patients suffered from complications associated with arrhythmia, and the number of deaths due to them.

The analysis conducted by scientists showed that an unexpectedly large percentage of carriers of this disease, that is, about 25% of their total number (17.3 thousand patients), were men and women under the age of 65 years. At the same time, the researchers found that the development of heart rhythm disturbances increased the probability of early death in patients by 1.3-1.5 times for men, and by 1.7-2.4 times for women compared to other patients in this age group.

Scientists said this risk was particularly high for men and women under the age of 50. They died on average from 1.8 to 3.16 times more often and became victims of myocardial infarction, heart failure, and strokes than Americans of the same age who did not suffer from heart disorders. The probability of developing all of these problems increases in the presence of bad habits, diabetes, high blood pressure, and other chronic diseases.

Bonsall and his colleagues hope that the information they have collected will help doctors develop new methods for diagnosing and preventing arrhythmia, given the unexpectedly high rate of its development in relatively young patients. The researchers concluded that this would help reduce its negative impact on public health in the United States and other countries around the world.

According to World Health Organization statistics, arrhythmia is one of the most common forms of heart disorders. The number of people infected with it increases by approximately 8-9% every decade. In 2010, this number reached 33 million people. At present, medications and various forms of shock therapy and restoration of normal heart rhythm are used to treat this disease.