Correlations between acute atrial fibrillation and local earth magnetic field strength

Abstract

Objectives: Atrial fibrillation is the most frequent cardiac arrhythmia affecting over 3 percent and appears to be increasing in general population. In addition to widely discussed such risk factor as obesity, arterial hypertension, electrolytes disbalances and dysfunction of thyroid, there is more and more evidence of human heath interactions with environment parameters such as humidity, temperature, the lunar and the solar activity. Atrial fibrillation, a disorder of heart conductive system, in several studies have been indicated as affected by local Earth magnetic field changes. The study was aimed to analyse possible correlations between the power in the local Earth time-varying magnetic field and admission due to atrial fibrillation. Methods: Two-hundred-fifty-one patients diagnosed with acute atrial fibrillation and treated in Department of Cardiology of Hospital of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics during year of 2016 were retrospectively included into the study. Weekly prevalence of acute atrial fibrillation was compared with weekly summarised changes in the local Earth magnetic field strength. One-year was divided into two time periods according to week number: the first period included weeks from 1 to 26 and the second period included weeks from 27 to 52. Results: Analyses have shown from weak to moderate significant correlations. Tendencies towards higher power magnetic field in low frequently ranges to be associated with higher admission rates were noticeable throughout all analysed periods. Atrial fibrillation concomitant with arterial hypertension was indicated as combination increasing severity of correlation coefficient. Conclusion: Significant correlations between acute atrial fibrillation and the local Earth time varying magnetic field changes were found. Increased magnetic field in low frequency ranges are associated with episodes of acute atrial fibrillation. Arterial hypertension is significantly associated with higher admission due to atrial fibrillation rate under low frequency local Earth magnetic field range.