Q: There’s also detailed data about atrial fibrillation risk factors, which include older age, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, alcohol use, diabetes, height, obesity, diabetes, and others. Is this information useful?
A: It’s a really great tool to have in the arsenal because it helps me have shared decision-making conversations with my patients in a way that’s much more convincing. A patient might say, “Why do you care if I drink so much? My liver levels are fine.” And I can say, “It’s going to be a risk factor for having problems with your heart.”
For better or worse, people really take the heart very seriously, I am an internal medicine physician, so I love all the organs equally. But man, people get pretty scared when you tell them something can affect their heart. So when I talk to patients about their risk factors, it’s going to really be helpful that I can remind them of the impact that some of these lifestyle behaviors can have on their heart health.
Dr. Candler has no disclosures.