What is it about?
This study followed over 100,000 Japanese adults who had regular health checkups. It found that people whose heart signal timing (QT) was longer or changed a lot over time were more likely to develop an irregular heartbeat called atrial fibrillation. These findings suggest that simple heart tests may help identify people at higher risk earlier.
Featured Image
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This study is unique because it used health check data from over 100,000 people and followed them for many years. It showed that small changes in a simple heart test can warn of future heartbeat problems, even in healthy people, making early prevention possible.
Perspectives
This study suggests that a common heart test used in health checkups can help find people at risk of future irregular heartbeat, even before symptoms appear. Watching changes in heart signal timing over time may support earlier care and prevention.
YUICHI NINOMIYA
National Hospital Organization Kagoshima Medical Center
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: QT prolongation and excessive variability predicts new-onset atrial fibrillation in the health screening data of Japanese adults, PLOS One, October 2025, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0333169.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
