The authors concluded that there appeared to be a dose-response relationship between levels of physical activity and the effectiveness of a COVID-19 vaccine against hospital admission . They suggested that public health messaging should encourage physical activity as a means of enhancing vaccine effectiveness .
Reference 1 Collie S et al . Association between regular physical activity and the protective effect of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in a South African case-control study . Br J Sports Med 2022 .
Second catheter ablation improves quality of life in patients with AF
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Among patients whose initial catheter ablation has not successfully controlled their atrial fibrillation ( AF ), a redo ablation significantly improves quality of life .
AF is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and , in recent years , sustained rhythm control has been achieved in patients undergoing catheter ablation . In fact , such treatment not only improves rhythm control but also leads to an improvement in a patient ’ s quality of life . But where ablation is unsuccessful , medical treatment with anti-arrhythmic agents is often initiated . Despite this , some evidence suggests that when directly compared with medical therapy , a second ablation provides a significant reduction in arrhythmia recurrence compared with medical therapy . Nevertheless , little is known about whether a second ablation also leads to improvements in a patient ’ s quality of life .
Using a prospective registry for all redo ablation patients , US researchers included data on patients ’ quality of life together with subsequent health utilisation data . Patients were automatically sent an email invite to complete several quality-of-life measures including an AF-specific quality of life outcomes , 10 days before their ablation ( which served as a baseline ) and after 3 and 6 months and then every 6 months . Additionally , collected information included an atrial fibrillation symptom severity scale ( AFSSS ) which rated 7 symptoms on a scale from 0 ( i . e ., no symptoms ) to 5 ( worse symptoms ) such that higher scores reflected worse symptoms . Health utilisation data collected included emergency department visits , hospitalisation and use of antiarrhythmic drugs and all data were collected over a 3-year period .
A total of 848 patients with a mean age of 63.8 years ( 28 % female ) were included in the final analysis .
Overall , more than 70 % of patients reported a marked improvement in their AF-related symptoms following ablation with
less than 10 % reporting no change or symptom worsening . For example , the baseline median AFSSS score was 12 and this reduced to between 2 and 4 on subsequent assessment ( p < 0.0001 ). In addition , the AF burden was also significantly reduced and prior to the second ablation , 50 % of patients had at least one AF-related hospitalisation and this fell to less than 12 % beyond the first year of follow-up ( p < 0.0001 ). The use of rhythm controlling agents also reduced from 63 % at baseline to under 37 % after 3 months ( p < 0.0001 ). Finally , the overall freedom from recurrent atrial arrhythmia at 1-year after the second ablation was 82.7 % and after 3 years , 78 % of patients were still without arrythmias .
The authors concluded that most AF patients derived significant improvements in quality of life and healthcare utilisation following a second catheter ablation .
Reference 1 Farwati M et al . Impact of redo ablation for atrial fibrillation on patient-reported outcomes and quality of life . J Cardiovasc Electrophysiol 2022 Oct [ Online ahead of print ].
Vitamin D supplementation reduces COVID-19 infection and mortality
The role of vitamin D and its relationship with COVID-19 infection remains unclear but a study among those prescribed the vitamin prior to the pandemic suggests a possible benefit .
A large number of studies have been undertaken during the pandemic examining the potential protective role of vitamin D
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