Alcohol use and supraventricular arrhythmia

Abstract An association of heavier alcohol ingestion with cardiac arrhythmias has been suspected for decades. The concept of the “holiday heart syndrome” (supraventricular arrhythmia [SVA] induced by drinking binges) was popularized by Ettinger et al 1 10 years ago. Supporting evidence has consisted of case reports, a few case-control studies and data suggesting that alcohol potentiates arrhythmogenesis in the laboratory. Yet, the sparse available prospective data have failed to support an alcohol-SVA association. Consideration of the subject is complicated by the disparate relations between alcohol and various conditions 2 that could, in turn, be related to SVA. Heavier drinking is associated with cardiomyopathy and hypertension, while coronary artery disease is more prevalent in abstainers. Considering these problems, we have attempted to study prospectively the relation of heavier alcohol intake to SVA in a large free-living population.