Associations of adding salt to foods with incident atrial fibrillation in the UK biobank study

Abstract

Abstract Background/Introduction Recent studies documented that the frequency of adding salt to foods was significantly related with cardiovascular disease and premature death. Purpose We aimed to investigate the relationship between frequency of adding salt to food and incident atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods The UK Biobank cohort study enrolled more than 500 000 participants aged 40 to 70 years across the United Kingdom from 2006 to 2010. We excluded participants with AF, coronary artery disease, heart failure or stroke. This study included 395,682 participants who completed the questionnaire of the frequency of adding salt to foods at baseline. Results Compared with participants with a higher frequency of adding salt to foods, participants with a lower frequency were more women and had lower waist and Townsend deprivation index (TDI). During follow-up, 19212 (4.9%) developed AF. Compared with the group of always adding salt to foods, lower frequency of adding salt to foods was significantly associated with lower risk of incident AF after adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, TDI and other clinical variables (Hazard ratio[HR] 0.88 [95% confidence interval[CI] 0.82-0.95] in the group of usually, HR 0.85 [95% CI 0.80-0.91] in the group of sometimes and HR 0.82 [95% CI 0.77-0.88] in the group of never/rarely, respectively). In the multivariate Cox regression analysis, the lowest frequency of adding salt to food had lower risk of incident AF (HR 0.77 [95% CI 0.63-0.93]) compared with the highest frequency group after adjustment for total energy intake. Conclusion Our study indicates that lower frequency of adding salt to foods was associated with lower risk of incident AF.Baseline characteristicsRisk of incident atrial fibrillation