Diabetes link to irregular heartbeat

According to a recent diabetes study, diabetes is linked with a 40 per cent greater risk of developing atrial fibrillatio, the most common form of irregular heartbeat. The study, at the Group Health Research Institute, found an even greater association with those who have had diabetes for longer.
The research team tracked 1,400 Group Health patients, and compared these cases with 2,200 control subjects. The researcher, Dr. Sascha Dubli, was the first to link atrial fibrillation with the duration of diabetes and blood glucose levels .
Dr. Dublin reportedly commented: “When a patient with diabetes has symptoms like heart palpitations, clinicians should have a higher level of suspicion that the reason could be atrial fibrillation. This heart rhythm disturbance is important to diagnose, because it can be treated with medications like warfarin that can prevent many of the strokes that the atrial fibrillation would otherwise cause.”