Does endurance exercise cause atrial fibrillation in women?

Abstract

Prolonged endurance sport practice might increase the risk of atrial fibrillation (AF), possibly caused by myocardial and autonomic adaption to exercise [ [1] Wilhelm M. Atrial fibrillation in endurance athletes. Eur. J. Prev. Cardiol. 2013; 21: 1040-1048 Crossref PubMed Scopus (57) Google Scholar ]. As recently addressed by Turagam et al., questions regarding the duration, intensity and type of exercise that increase the risk of AF, and the natural history of the arrhythmia in athletes, still remain unanswered [ [2] Turagam M.K. Velagapudi P. Alpert M.A. Does exercise cause atrial fibrillation?. Int. J. Cardiol. 2014; 181C: 245-246 PubMed Google Scholar ]. In addition, there is a lack of data on gender differences in the association between endurance exercise and AF.