Determining the best approach to reduce the impact of exercise-induced atrial fibrillation: prevention, screening, or symptom-based treatment?

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Regular endurance exercise over the course of many years appears to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF). These data challenge the notion that the benefits of physical activity have no appreciable limits. The incidence of exercise-induced AF is expected to increase as a consequence of the popularity of extreme endurance sports. Actions to reduce its impact are warranted.

Areas covered: This review focuses on exercise-induced AF and reviews the existing data regarding the prevention, screening, and treatment of this disease, with the aim of elucidating the best options for this group of patients.

Expert commentary: To date, strategies to deal with exercise-induced AF are unsatisfactory. Improved knowledge of AF pathology and better classification schemes are needed to address current pitfalls.

KEYWORDS:

• Atrial fibrillation
• endurance exercise
• prevention
• screening
• smartphone-based atrial fibrillation detection
• symptom-based treatment

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by a grant from AGAUR (Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, [2017SGR1548]; European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme grant agreement No [633196], CATCH ME project; Instituto de Salud Carlos III [PI16/00703] and CIBERCV [CB16/11/00354].