People living with atrial fibrillation who kept moving, even at low intensity, had a measurably lower risk of stroke and of dying during a long follow-up. That is the takeaway from a large Norwegian analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in August 2026.
Compared with sedentary peers, adults with atrial fibrillation who did moderate activity had a 19% lower risk of stroke and an 18% lower risk of death from any cause, the American Heart Association reported. Those doing the highest levels of activity saw death risk fall by 22%.
Even a low dose helped. Light activity was linked to a 9% lower stroke risk and an 11% lower risk of dying over the follow-up period.
What the study looked at
Researchers pooled data from two long-running Norwegian population studies, the HUNT Study and the Tromsø Study, tracking 87,340 adults with an average age of 51. Median follow-up was about 13.5 years, and more than 6,500 participants had atrial fibrillation, according to Healio's coverage of the paper.
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The associations came from an observational study, so they cannot prove that activity itself caused the lower risks. People who move more often eat differently, sleep better or have fewer other conditions. Still, the size of the group, the length of follow-up and the consistent dose response across low, moderate and high activity strengthen the signal.
Active adults with atrial fibrillation also lived longer. Life expectancy was roughly half a year to 1.2 years greater than for inactive peers.
Why this matters for people with AFib
Atrial fibrillation is an irregular, often rapid heart rhythm that lets blood pool in the heart's upper chambers, where clots can form and travel to the brain. The American Heart Association estimates that 10.55 million American adults, about 4.48% of the adult population, are living with the condition.
The stroke stakes are high. Adults with atrial fibrillation are about five times more likely to have a stroke than people without it, according to the American Heart Association, and AFib-related strokes tend to be more severe.
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Standard care leans heavily on medication, particularly blood thinners to prevent clots. The new findings point to physical activity as an add-on that patients themselves control, not a replacement for prescribed drugs.
Where to start
Lead researcher Kristoffer Johansen, PhD, of UiT The Arctic University of Norway, said in the American Heart Association's release, "Real health benefits can happen no matter when a person starts getting active, and even a little exercise is better than nothing."
Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Mina Chung, MD, who co-chaired the 2023 joint atrial fibrillation guidelines, said the results should motivate patients to be as active as they can, because even lower levels of activity were tied to benefit.
For anyone with atrial fibrillation, decisions about how and how much to exercise, and whether to adjust medications, belong with a doctor who knows the individual case. The signal from the new work is that walking regularly is not a threat to worry about, but a lever worth using. It sits alongside earlier findings that as little as 13 minutes of exercise a day has been linked to a lower risk of early death.
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This article is made and published by Jesper Bengtson, who may have used AI in the preparation.