AFIB: A SILENT CAUSE OF HEART FAILURE AND STROKE

*** September is National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month ***

BACKGROUND:
We all know someone who's had a heart scare – an unusual flutter or disconcerting palpitations. The potential cause? A little-known and often silent heart health problem, atrial fibrillation (AFib), is the most common heart rhythm¹ (arrhythmia) disorder and can strike anyone. 

In this segment, Mintu Turakhia, Cardiologist and Chief Medical Officer at iRhythm and Mellanie True Hills, AFib Patient advocate and creator of National Atrial Fibrillation Awareness Month and founder of StopAFib.org, a global patient advocacy organization, raise awareness of AFib and teach people what to do if they, or their loved ones, are at risk or concerned about the condition.

AFib can be easy to miss, leading to high-stakes health consequences: if AFib is not properly diagnosed and treated, it can lead to health complications including stroke, heart failure and more. Early detection and treatment are critical² Consider the following: 

• AFib can happen to anyone: There is 1 in 4 lifetime risk of getting AFib³. It can strike anyone regardless of age, gender, background and general health status. 
• AFib is more common than many think: An estimated 6.1 million people in the U.S. have AFib, a number projected to balloon to 12 million by 2030⁴.
• AFib is a silent intruder: While some people with AFib experience some of the more common symptoms (heart palpitations lightheadedness, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath), many don’t have any symptoms⁵; in fact, approximately 1/3 of AFib patients are asymptomatic at the time of diagnosis. 

The path to diagnosing AFib has not always been straightforward. Consumer wearable devices, like a smartwatch, might alert you about AFib but cannot diagnose you because they are not medical grade. Older technology doesn’t work for accurate detection, either. Symptoms may come and go, and with antiquated technology from the 1960’s (“Holter monitors”) still widely used today, these devices only record 24-48 hours of heart data and can miss detecting AFib. 

However, newer medical-grade ECG heart monitors the size of a medium ‘bandage continuously record your heart rhythms for up to 14 days, helping doctors more accurately diagnose AFib⁶. You can wear these small and comfortable monitoring devices while going about your daily activities, such as exercising, traveling, showering, and sleeping...

For more information please visit: https://www.stopafib.org/

MORE ABOUT DR. TURAKHIA AND MELLANIE
Mintu Turakhia, MD, MAS, is the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President, Product Innovation at iRhythm. He is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and a practicing cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist (heart rhythm specialist) at the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital. Trained in computer science, medicine, biostatistics, and research, he brings over 20 years of experience in patient care, outcomes research and trials, data science and artificial intelligence, medical device regulation, and the creation and commercialization of digital health products. At Stanford, he was the co-founder and director of the Stanford Center for Digital Health, where he led a large multidisciplinary research program in heart rhythm disorders, real-world evidence, clinical trials, and digital health. He has led several large-scale trials of digital health tools and wearables for heart disease, including as co-principal investigator of the landmark Apple Heart Study, enrolling over 400,000 participants, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For 14 years, he served as Chief of Cardiac Electrophysiology at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, where he developed a best-in-class, high volume arrhythmia care program and where he continues to treat patients with arrhythmia procedures.

Mellanie True Hills provides an atrial fibrillation patient perspective (now 17+ years AFib-free). She is an internationally known author and speaker and founder/CEO of StopAfib.org, a global afib patient advocacy organization and is the creator of AFib Awareness Month. She co-created MyAFibExperience.org with the American Heart Association, co-chairs global advocacy task forces, convenes the National AF Health Policy Roundtable, and hosts the annual Get in Rhythm. Stay in Rhythm. Atrial Fibrillation Patient Conference.

Produced for: iRhythm Technologies

1. Atrial Fibrillation. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/heartdisease/atrial_fibrillation.htm [accessed September 2023]
2. Rilig et al. Early Rhythm Control in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation and High Comorbidity Burden. Circulation, 2022.
3. Staerk, et al., Lifetime risk of atrial fibrillation according to optimal, borderline, or elevated levels of risk factors: cohort study based on longitudinal data from the Framingham Heart Study. BMJ. 2018
4. Colilla S., et al. Estimates of current and future incidence and prevalence of atrial fibrillation in the U.S. adult population. The American Journal of Cardiology, 2013.
5. Sgreccia, et al., Comparing Outcomes in Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Atrial Fibrillation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of 81,462 Patients. Journal of Clinical Medicine MDPI, 2021.
6. "1. Reynolds et al. Comparative effectiveness of ambulatory monitors for arrhythmia diagnosis: A retrospective analysis of Medicare beneficiaries managed with ambulatory cardiac monitors between 2017 and 2019. Accepted for ACC.23 presentation, presented at New Orleans, LA. 2. Specified arrhythmias defined by Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCC) 96. 3.Based on previous generation Zio XT device data. Zio monitor utilizes the same operating principles and ECG algorithm. Additional data on file. 4.Zio LTCM service refers to Zio XT and Zio monitor service."