Many thousands of people around the world suffer from some sort of heart rhythm disorder known as atrial fibrillation (a-fib). According to the American Heart Association:

Atrial fibrillation (also called AFib or AF) is a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related complications. At least 2.7 million Americans are living with AFib…

Normally, your heart contracts and relaxes to a regular beat. In atrial fibrillation, the upper chambers of the heart (the atria) beat irregularly (quiver) instead of beating effectively to move blood into the ventricles.

If a clot breaks off, enters the bloodstream and lodges in an artery leading to the brain, a stroke results. About 15–20 percent of people who have strokes have this heart arrhythmia. This clot risk is why patients with this condition are put on *blood thinners.

Even though untreated atrial fibrillation doubles the risk of heart-related deaths and is associated with a 5-fold increased risk for stroke, many patients are unaware that AFib is a serious condition.

According to the Mayo Clinic, treatment for a-fib includes:

The atrial fibrillation treatment that is most appropriate for you will depend on how long you’ve had atrial fibrillation, how bothersome your symptoms are and the underlying cause of your atrial fibrillation. Generally, the treatment goals for atrial fibrillation are to:

• Reset the rhythm or control the rate

• Prevent blood clots, which may decrease the risk of a stroke

A common treatment for a-fib is some sort of blood thinner to help prevent blood clots from forming and causing life-threatening impacts on the heart and lungs. However, according to a recently reported study, the use of blood thinners to treat a-fib may increase the risk of developing colon cancer:

Researchers looked at more than 125,000 patients in Denmark with the heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation (a-fib). They reported that those with gastrointestinal bleeding were 11 to 24 times more likely than others to be diagnosed with colon cancer.

The study was published Feb. 7 in the European Heart Journal.

Between 4% and 8% of a-fib patients who had bleeding in the lower GI tract were diagnosed with colon cancer, compared to less than 1% of those without bleeding, said study leader Peter Vibe Rasmussen of the Department of Cardiology at Herlev-Gentofte University Hospital, part of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“Our findings underline the important point that patients with gastrointestinal bleeding should always be offered meticulous clinical examination, irrespective of whether or not they are taking anticoagulants. It should not be dismissed as a mere consequence of anticoagulant treatment,” Rasmussen said in a journal news release.

If you think 8% isn’t that much of a risk, then consider the fact that if you are in a room with just 25 people who take blood thinners due to a-fib, 2 of them will likely develop colon cancer. Are you will to take that risk?

Therefore, if you are one of the many who suffer from a-fib and take a blood thinner, or you know someone who does, it is recommended that you and they see the doctor and be tested for colon cancer on a regular basis.