Following U.S. politics can lead to a significant increase in cardiac arrhythmias, according to a new analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The study’s authors focused on the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which famously featured two of the most divisive presidential candidates in modern history—Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton—and resulted in countless controversies. They tracked data from nearly 2,500 patients with implanted cardiac devices for underlying cardiovascular disease, comparing readings from a six-week span leading up to the election with two control periods that took place well before the big day.
Overall, the team reported, people wearing implanted cardiac devices saw a 77% increase in their risk of cardiac arrhythmia. Looking closer at the data, there was also a significant increase in specific types of arrythmia, including atrial fibrillation, supraventricular tachycardia and nonsustained ventricular tachycardia.
“This retrospective case-crossover study was conducted in North Carolina, which was a swing state in the 2016 U.S. presidential election,” lead author Lindsey Rosman, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the UNC School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement. “People living in North Carolina were exposed to a particularly high volume of negative political commercials, advertisements and campaign events that were very intense in rhetoric. So, their stress levels may have been especially high leading up to the 2016 election.”
The authors also found that this was a health issue for both political parties as opposed to just Republicans or Democrats.
“Risk of heart events increased for people no matter their political affiliation, race or gender,” Rosman added. “But we did see that registered Democrats experienced nearly twice as many heart events as Republicans, which is a trend we would like to explore further.”
The team’s work was funded by a grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Additional support came from the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute.
Read the full study here.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.