Smoking, eating or vaping cannabis is associated with a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, even if the person had no existing heart disease or habit of tobacco usage, according to a report by the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association analyzed 430,000 adults in the U.S. from 2016 through 2020 to examine the link between cannabis use and cardiovascular conditions such as heart attack, stroke, and heart disease.
The survey data stated that daily cannabis users have 25 percent and 42 percent higher odds of heart attack and stroke, respectively, compared to non-users.
“Cannabis smoke is not all that different from tobacco smoke, except for the psychoactive drug: THC vs. nicotine. Our study shows that smoking cannabis has significant cardiovascular risk risks, just like smoking tobacco. This is particularly important because cannabis use is increasing, and conventional tobacco use is decreasing,” said lead study author Abra Jeffers, Ph.D., a data analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The study also found that cannabis use led to 36 percent higher odds of heart disease among younger adults at risk of cardiovascular disease, despite the frequency of usage. Younger adults were defined as men younger than 55 years old and women younger than 65 years old in the report.
The participants of the survey ranged in age from 18 to 74 years, with an average age of 45 years. Around 90 percent of adults were non-users, whereas more than 63 percent had never used any tobacco products. Among the current cannabis users, 73.8 percent consumed cannabis through smoking.
“The findings of this study have very important implications for population health and should be a call to action for all practitioners, as this study adds to the growing literature that cannabis use and cardiovascular disease may be a potentially hazardous combination,” said Robert Page II, chair of the volunteer writing group for the 2020 American Heart Association Scientific Statement: Medical Marijuana, Recreational Cannabis, and Cardiovascular Health.
Page advised that “As cannabis use continues to grow in legality and access across the U.S., practitioners and clinicians need to remember to assess cannabis use at each patient encounter in order to have a non-judgmental, shared decision conversation about potential cardiovascular risks and ways to reduce those risks.”
However, it is significant to note that the study might be a bit flawed, given that the cardiovascular conditions and cannabis use were self-reported, the authors did not have health data regarding participants’ baseline lipid profile and blood pressure, and the study was entirely based on a single point of time.
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