Global Findings Indicate Breast Cancer and A-Fib Incidence Frequently Overlap

THURSDAY, July 16, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Eighty countries and territories, accounting for 39.60 percent of the world, exhibit overlapping breast cancer (BC) and atrial fibrillation (AF) incidence, according to a study published online July 8 in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Yiyin Zhang, M.D., Ph.D., from the Peking University People”s Hospital in Beijing, and colleagues integrated data from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 database for 204 countries and territories to examine the coincidence burden and global distribution of BC and AF among women aged 55 years and older. The globe was divided into three regions: consistent, BC-dominant, and AF-dominant areas.

The consistent area (80 countries, 39.60 percent) showed overlapping BC-AF incidence, while geographic disparities were highlighted in the BC-dominant (65 countries; 32.18 percent) and AF-dominant (57 countries; 28.22 percent) regions. The researchers found that two shared factors (smoking and alcohol use) and two BC-specific factors (high body mass index and low physical activity) were included in the calculation of the population-attributable fraction after screening of machine learning models; after shifting these factors to theoretical minimum exposure levels, global BC and AF incidence could potentially be reduced by 29.05 and 11.75 percent, respectively. High-risk zones clustered in North and South America, Europe, and Oceania mainly correlate with dietary and lifestyle patterns for most factors.

“Nowadays, more and more people are paying attention to the link between cancer and cardiovascular health,” coauthors Zeye Li, M.D., Ph.D., and Yi Shi, M.D., Ph.D., both also from Peking University, said in a statement. “Reducing smoking and alcohol use could help lower the risk of both conditions at the same time.”

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