Abstract

The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a conglomerate of five conditions, namely high waist circumference, high triglycerides, high fasting glucose, hypertension, and low HDL-cholesterol. Approximately 36% of US adult population have 3 or more of the MetS conditions and meet the MetS diagnosis, by the American Heart Association/ National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI) criteria. MetS patients are twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) than control patients. The recent, prospective Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study and Niigata Preventative Medicine Study have shown an increase in atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with MetS and a sedentary lifestyle. This study aims to further add to this research by analyzing MetS across AF types (paroxysmal, persistent, or chronic/ permanent). Thirty-five pre-existing AF patients were analyzed retrospectively based on the five MetS components, age, gender, AF type, age of onset, and family history, alcohol use, and exercise. A blood sample was taken to measure patient’s adiponectin, C-reactive protein, and free fatty acid levels. In this study, 82.9% of patients had both the MetS and AF. Each additional MetS component a patient had increased his/her risk of permanent AF by 3.7 times (95% C.I. 1.2,11.6). Low adiponectin levels predicted the MetS in patients via Mann-Whitney U test (p=0.003). No clear conclusions could be drawn on any of the blood markers across AF type via Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance test due to low sample size. In this study, all MetS components were shown to increase a patient’s likelihood of highest risk AF type (permanent). Further research is needed to determine if this relationship is due to correlation or causation, and if elimination of MetS components reduces the patient’s AF burden or prolongs the advancement to permanent AF.