Sascha Dublin, MD, PhD, was interviewed by Reuters Health in a May 11th article on the health risks associated with diabetes. Dr. Dublin and her team at the Group Health Research Institute discovered that people with diabetes suffer a greater chance of having atrial fibrillation, which is the most common type of cardiac arrhythmia. While there have been many studies conducted on the link between diabetes and atrial fibrillation, they have never led to one conclusive result, perhaps because many failed to account for obesity. Dr. Dublin and her colleagues attempted to settle that uncertainty by analyzing data for 1,410 people with atrial fibrillation and 2,203 people with normal heart rhythms. They found that a greater percentage of people in the former group had diabetes, which meant a 40% increased risk of atrial fibrillation for diabetics. Dr. Dublin also found a correlation between the severity of diabetes, as judged by average hemoglobin A1C levels, how long the subject had been on medication, and the risk of atrial fibrillation. Dr. Dublin is an assistant investigator at the Center for Health Studies at Group Health in Seattle. She received a 2007 Paul Beeson Career Development Award in Aging Research.
