Booze makes your heart race. Can it also trigger arrhythmias?

Higher alcohol consumption was linked to faster and faster heart rates in a study of more than 3,000 people attending the Munich Oktoberfest in Germany, according to research presented March 18 at the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) Congress in Barcelona.

According to a European Society of Cardiology press release, it is the first study of how acute alcohol consumption affects electrocardiogram (ECG) readings.

Participants were 35 years old on average and 70 percent male. Increasing breath alcohol concentration was found to have a linear effect on heart rate with no upper threshold, with 25.9 percent of the cohort meeting the definition of sinus tachycardia (more than 100 beats per minute). Alcohol consumption didn’t affect ECG-derived measures of conduction and repolarization.

In such a young study group, the researchers were unable to determine whether alcohol consumption can trigger arrhythmic episodes—or whether it can lead to developing heart rhythm disorders down the road.

“We cannot yet conclude that a higher heart rate induced by alcohol is harmful,” co-lead author Moritz Sinner, MD, MPH, with University Hospital Munich, said in the release. “But people with heart conditions already have a higher heart rate, which in many cases triggers arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation. So it is plausible that the higher heart rate following alcohol consumption could lead to arrhythmias.”