Skip to main content

A-Fib Risk Drops Soon After Quitting Smoking

By Ernie Mundell HealthDay Reporter

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Sep 13, 2024.

via HealthDay

FRIDAY, Sept. 13, 2024 -- Smokers who make the decision to quit will see almost immediate health benefits, including a quick drop in their risk for atrial fibrillation, new research shows.

“The findings provide a compelling new reason to show current smokers that it’s not too late to quit and that having smoked in the past doesn’t mean you’re ‘destined’ to develop A-Fib,” said study senior author Dr. Gregory Marcus.

“Even for the current and longtime smoker, A-Fib can still be avoided," said Marcus, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco. His team published its findings Sept. 11 in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology.

With A-Fib, the upper chambers of the heart, called the atria, start to beat irregularly. This allows blood to pool and potentially clot in the atria, increasing a person’s risk of stroke.

“There’s strong evidence that smoking increases the risk of A-Fib, but the benefits of quitting smoking have been less certain,” Marcus said. “We wanted to determine whether quitting smoking could lower a person’s risk of developing A-Fib or if the risk would stay the same.”

To find out, they looked at British data on over 146,700 current or former smokers whose smoking history and health was tracked for 12 years in the UK Biobank database.

Folks who were former smokers (before they joined the study) had a 13% lower odds for A-Fib than current smokers, and if the smoker quit during the study period their risk of A-Fib fell to 18% below that of current smokers, Marcus' team found.

“This is likely a testament to the potency of reducing atrial fibrillation risk pretty shortly after quitting,” Marcus said in a news release from the American College of Cardiology.

Sources

  • American College of Cardiology, news release, Sept. 11, 2024

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Read this next

FDA Approves Juul E-Cigs for Sale, Years After Ban Attempt

FRIDAY, July 18, 2025 — After years of legal battles and health concerns, Juul Labs has the go-ahead to sell some of its electronic cigarettes in the United States. The...

Vaping Better At Helping Smokers Quit, Clinical Trial Indicates

TUESDAY, July 15, 2025 — Vaping might be more effective than traditional nicotine replacement therapies in helping people quit smoking, a new Australian study...

Nicotine Pouch Ingestions Surge Among Young Children

TUESDAY, July 15, 2025 — The number of young children who come across nicotine pouches and swallow them has surged in recent years, a new study says. Ingestions of nicotine...

More news resources

Subscribe to our newsletter

Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.