The editorial accompanying the study discusses the unexpected cardioprotective effects of champagne and white wine, challenging the traditional focus on red wine's benefits.

The authors of the editorial called for a shift in focus from reactive treatment of SCA to proactive prevention strategies, emphasizing the multifactorial nature of SCA and the importance of modifiable risk factors for public health initiatives.

Key lifestyle factors influencing cardiac arrest include smoking, exercise, obesity, sleep quality, and education level, with lifestyle habits having the most substantial impact.

Dr. Luo clarified that advanced methods like Mendelian Randomization helped filter out confounding factors, highlighting more reliable modifiable risks for prevention.

A new study has identified 56 non-clinical risk factors associated with sudden cardiac arrest (SCA), suggesting that addressing these factors could potentially prevent up to 63% of cases.

Lifestyle factors emerged as the most significant contributors to SCA prevention, indicating that improving lifestyle choices could reduce cardiac arrest cases by 40% to 63%.

This new perspective suggests a need to reassess the understanding of alcohol's health impacts, as moderate consumption of champagne or white wine was also found to be protective against cardiac arrest.

Co-investigator Renjie Chen, Ph.D., noted the surprising potential to prevent a significant proportion of SCA cases through lifestyle interventions.

Among the protective factors identified, increased consumption of champagne and white wine, greater fruit intake, positive mood maintenance, weight management, blood pressure control, and improved education were highlighted.

Lead investigator Huihuan Luo, Ph.D., emphasized the study's unique approach, utilizing exposome-wide association analysis and Mendelian randomization to explore a broad range of environmental exposures.

Sudden cardiac arrest poses a significant global health challenge, with approximately 60,000 incidents occurring annually in Canada, underscoring the urgent need for effective preventive measures.

The research, published in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, analyzed data from over 502,000 participants in the UK Biobank, with 3,147 individuals experiencing sudden cardiac arrest over nearly 14 years of follow-up.