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Can AFib Give Me A Heart Attack?

We're going to be talking about AFib and heart attacks and discussing the question, can AFib actually give you a heart attack? Many patients when they have episodes of atrial fibrillation, they can have chest pain and feel as if they are having a heart attack. So can atrial fibrillation actually give you a heart attack? The answer to that question is both yes and no. And let me explain why I answer it that way. Atrial fibrillation by itself is unlikely to cause a heart attack in somebody who has an otherwise normal heart. Meaning that you've never had a heart attack before, you don't have any blockages, you've never had bypass surgery, and your heart is otherwise normal.
It would be very unlikely to see AFib cause a heart attack even if your heart rate was going pretty fast...120, 150 beats per minutes, maybe even faster, close to 180 beats per minute. Again, if your heart is otherwise normal, a normal strength and no blockages, it would be unlikely for it to cause a heart attack. However, patients who have atrial fibrillation have also usually have very common risk factors for also developing coronary artery disease, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, or they are usually older in age, over 60, 70 years of age.
And these are all common risk factors for developing coronary artery disease as well. So when people have underlying coronary artery disease and you get an episode of atrial fibrillation and your heart rate is going fast, it can certainly put a strain on your heart and cause signs of a heart attack. When somebody is first admitted to the hospital with atrial fibrillation, many blood tests are done, but a blood test that is commonly done is what's called cardiac enzymes. These are blood tests looking for proteins that are released when there are signs of heart damage.
And it's not uncommon that these blood tests are abnormal when people have episodes of atrial fibrillation and also underlying coronary artery disease. And they can show signs of a heart attack. Now these are typically not massive or large heart attacks. The blood tests might just be a little bit abnormal. But then the blood tests being abnormal is just a marker that there is underlying coronary artery disease. And I've talked many times on previous videos that the risk factors and causes for atrial fibrillation, the common risk factors like age, high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, these are all risk factors for also having coronary artery disease.
So the risk factors are very similar between the two. As a result, it's always important, if you've been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, to undergo screening for coronary artery disease such as with, like a stress test to make there's no signs of any blockage because the two risk factors are very similar.
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