No association between alcohol consumption and risk of atrial fibrillation

Alcohol intake has been related to atrial fibrillation (AF) in observational studies. Whether alcohol intake is causally associated with atrial fibrillation is unknown. Mendelian randomization (MR) approaches can assist in assessing causality.
A study examined the causal association of alcohol intake with the risk of atrial fibrillation. A two- sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was performed to estimate the causal effects of alcohol consumption, alcohol dependence, or alcohol use disorder identification test (AUDIT) scores on atrial fibrillation. Summary data on single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with atrial fibrillation were obtained from a genome- wide association study with up to 1,030,836 participants.
Mendelian randomization analysis revealed nonsignificant association of genetically predicted alcohol consumption with risk of atrial fibrillation using fixed- and random-effect IVW approaches (odds ratio (OR) [95% confidence interval (CI)] = 1.004 [0.796–1.266], P = 0.975; OR [95% CI] = 1.004 [0.766–1.315], P = 0.979). Genetically predicted alcohol dependence was not causally associated with atrial fibrillation and there was no significantly causal association between AUDIT and atrial fibrillation.
This MR study did not find evidence of a causal association between alcohol intake and AF.
Source: No association between alcohol consumption and risk of atrial fibrillation: A two-sample Mendelian randomization study. Jiang, Qi et al. Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiov scular Diseases,
Volume 30, Issue 8, 1389 – 1396.