The association between dyslipidemia, a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases, and atrial fibrillation (AF) remains obscure.

A new study published in Clinical Cardiology was based on the hypothesis that dyslipidemia may be associated with increased risk of AF.

This study selected 88,785 subjects belonging to a Chinese population, from the Kailuan Study, who were free from AF at baseline during 2006-2007. The participants were grouped in accordance with their quartiles of lipid profile. Incident AF was determined from electrocardiograms at biennial follow-up visits between 2008 and 2015. Subsequently, the associations between incident AF and the different lipid parameters, vis, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and triglycerides (TG), were assessed.

The results revealed that over a mean follow-up period of 7.12 years, 328 subjects developed AF. Meanwhile, higher TC and LDL-C levels were found to be inversely associated with incident AF. Contrastingly, HDL-C and TG levels showed no association with newly developed AF. Similar results were generated after exclusion of individuals with myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction or those on lipid-lowering therapy. Moreover, both TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratios were inversely associated with the risk of AF.

Hence, it was inferred that TC and LDL-C levels correlated inversely with incident AF, whereas no significant association existed between AF and HDL-C or TG levels.