Lee SR, Choi YJ, Choi EK, et al. - Researchers investigated how visit-to-visit blood pressure variability is associated with incident atrial fibrillation (AF) in this population-based cohort study. They used the Health Screening Cohort, which contained a complete set of medical claims and a biannual health checkup information of the Koran population, for obtaining data from a total of 8,063,922 individuals who had at least 3 health checkups with blood pressure measurement between 2004 and 2010. These individuals had no preexisting AF. AF was newly diagnosed in 140,086 individuals during a mean follow-up of 6.8 years. An increased risk of AF was observed in correlation with the highest blood pressure variability (fourth quartile) vs the lowest (first quartile). Individuals in the fourth quartile in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure variability exhibited a 7.6% higher risk of AF than those in the first quartile. In subgroup analysis, high-risk individuals, who were older (≥ 65 years), with diabetes mellitus or chronic kidney disease, exhibited a stronger impact of high blood pressure variability on AF development. Findings thereby suggest the association of higher blood pressure variability with a modestly increased risk of AF.