Journal of Obesity & Weight Loss Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Obesity has been attributed to almost 60% of the increase in atrial fibrillation (AF) incidence. Obese patients have a 45% to 50%
increased risk for incident AF compared to participants with normal body mass index (BMI). Projected estimates are that
by the year 2050 more than 10 million US citizens will have AF. This is the first study to investigate differences in frequency of AF
related hospitalizations in obese vs. non obese patients.There were total 3,229,992 AF related hospitalizations between years 2000
and 2008. The relative increase in AF related hospitalizations among obese patients was 237.2% over the same period. Among obese
patients, there is an exponential rise in AF related hospitalizations from 2000 through 2008, while the trend is linear among non
obese patients. If the rise in AF related hospitalization continues to increase in a similar fashion, there will be 75,563 (95% CI: 50,229–
113,675) AF related hospitalizations among obese population in 2020. Our data indicate that obesity has a major impact in AF related
hospitalizations and both are likely to pose a large public health burden in the future. Aggressive risk factor modification, including
management of obesity must be pursued to prevent AF related hospitalizations and thus reduce the “weight” on the health care
system. It is further important to study the association between obesity and atrial fibrillation since obesity is a potentially reversible
risk factor and intervention at this level may have major impact in cutting down the burden of two major epidemics.

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