Vitamin D and the risk of atrial fibrillation--the Rotterdam Study

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common chronic arrhythmia and it increases the risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Still there is not a complete understanding of its etiology and underlying pathways. Vitamin D might regulate renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system and might be involved in inflammation, both implicated in the pathophysiology of AF. The objective of this work was to investigate the association between vitamin D status with the risk of AF in the elderly. This study was conducted within the Rotterdam Study, a community-based cohort of middle-aged and elderly participants in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. We had 3,395 participants who were free of AF diagnosis at the start of our study and who had vitamin D data available. We analyzed the association between serum 25-hydroxivitamin D (25(OH)D) and incidence of AF using Cox regression models. Vitamin D deficiency was defined as serum 25(OH)D concentrations