People with atrial fibrillation (afib) have long reported that consuming cold foods and drinks can trigger episodes of irregular or rapid heart rhythms, only to be brushed off by their doctors
“Our study confirms this is a real problem for some people,” says David Vinson, MD, a senior author of the study and an emergency room physician and researcher at Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, California. “But it’s an unpredictable trigger.”
Dr. Vinson first wrote about cold drink heart as a case study (usually a report of a single patient’s symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment published in a medical journal) in 2022 — and says he subsequently received numerous emails from people with afib worldwide thanking him for validating their experiences
