How Does Diabetes Affect My Risk Of Developing An Abnormal Heart Rhythm?

— -- Question: How does diabetes affect my risk of developing an abnormal heart rhythm?

Answer :Diabetes and arrhythmias do have an interplay. This is important because diabetes is increasingly common its one of the epidemics. It can influence the risk of several arrhythmias that you may get.

One that's been studied recently is atrial fibrillation. Diabetes and other related conditions like the metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension have all been shown to increase the risk of atrial fibrillation.

In addition diabetes is a very common risk factor for coronary artery disease which can of course lead to myocardial infarction and to its own group of arrhythmias -- ventricular arrhythmias especially.

So you may be subject to a greatly increased risk of ventricular arrhythmias, arrhythmia occurring in the lower chambers of the heart -- the ventricles. And these can of course cause sudden death.

So diabetes can increase the risk of symptomatic but not as lethal arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation and it can also increase the risk of life threatening arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation.