A new predictor for the onset of atrial fibrillation?

In this issue of the Netherlands Heart Journal, the results of a substudy of the PREVEND trial are published.1 This prospective registry of presumably healthy citizens of Groningen aims to establish the association between microalbuminuria and the emergence of renal and cardiovascular diseases.2 This general population based long-term study extends the series of previous large-scale epidemiological trials conducted in the Netherlands. We recall among them the 1970 Vlagtwedde study for epidemiological cardiology and ischaemic heart disease, the 1982 Zutphen study of diet and cardiovascular diseases, the 1997 Maastricht study of circulatory arrest and sudden death, the 1998 Amsterdam study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and the 1999 Rotterdam study of prolonged QT interval and mortality.