UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa., July 30 -- Pennsylvania State University issued the following news release:
HERSHEY, Pa. - An estimated 10 million Americans have atrial fibrillation (AFib), according to the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. AFib is a condition in which the upper chambers of the heart beat out of rhythm with the lower chambers, leading to less-efficient blood flow. It is usually a product of age and the lifelong cardiovascular strains on an older heart, but some families carry a rare mutation that puts them at a high risk for AF much earlier in life, raising the risk of complications such as stroke or even sudden death.
"For many people, their first symptom of AFib is a stroke," said Dawood D...