Heart arrhythmia soars ‘astonishingly’ in UK

Around 1 in 45 Britons now suffer from atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat, according to the British Heart Foundation (BHF).

The BHF analyzed data from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and found that the number of atrial fibrillation cases has topped 1.5 million, a rapid growth from one million cases in 2013.

Atrial fibrillation is the most common form of heart arrhythmia. Without treatment, it can cause blood clots to form in the heart which increase the chance of stroke. While symptoms can include dizziness, fatigue, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat and others, there are sometimes no obvious symptoms at all.

Victims of atrial fibrillation include Fleetwood Mac star Christine McVie, who died last year after suffering a stroke. 

According to Sky News, the BHF believes there may be 270,000 more people with the illness who are unaware of it. 

"These figures show a quite astonishing rise in the number of people diagnosed with atrial fibrillation,” said BHF Medical Director Dr. Sir Nilesh Samani. 

"Research has helped us understand the links between atrial fibrillation and stroke and that has spurred the efforts we have seen in recent years to identify people with this potentially dangerous heart rhythm.

"What remains troubling is the sheer number of people who are undiagnosed and unaware that they are living with a heightened risk of stroke. Finding people with this hidden threat must remain a priority."

The reason for the rise in cases, says the foundation, is likely due to increased awareness and diagnoses, but the BHF is still searching for answers.

Medical bodies are also searching for answers to explain the sudden rise in excess deaths in the country.

According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 32,000 more deaths than usual between May and December last year against the five-year national average. The figure is excluding deaths due to COVID-19.

Emeritus Professor of Demography at Oxford University Professor David Coleman told The Mirror that after the sickly and elderly died from COVID-19, the country should have been left with a healthier population and less deaths.

“Once those poor people have been packed off, the remaining population should be healthier, there should be a period afterwards where deaths are lower than usual but that hasn’t happened,” said Coleman.

Two possible causes behind these deaths are dementia and ischemic heart disease, which Coleman says may be due to Brits becoming fatter.

“The population is getting older, and also the population in Britain is the fattest in Europe and rather vulnerable to diseases notably heart disease and diabetes; some people have been forecasting separately from Covid that death rates would continue to get worse because the country is so unhealthy,” he said.

However, many death certificates list the cause as “symptoms, signs and ill-defined diseases”, leaving the underlying cause of these deaths unknown.

“So whilst a heavily aging population may be throwing up yet another problem, it doesn’t quite explain why over 30,000 more people than usual died from May to December last year,” The Mirror reports before trying to offer climate change as a possible cause.

“Heat in particular persistently returns during the summer, and given climate change will only continue to pose such a fatal threat.”

No other possible causes of death were put forward by The Mirror, which is not the first media outlet to express confusion.

The BBC in January sounded the alarm over a concerning spike in excess deaths in the UK, speculating several possible causes while ruling out the COVID-19 injections. 

In an article titled, “Excess deaths in 2022 among worst in 50 years,” the BBC said more than 650,000 deaths were registered in the UK in 2022, a 9% jump from 2019 and one of the largest excess death levels outside the pandemic in 50 years. 

This, said the BBC, “raises questions about why more people are still dying than normal.”