Cannabis use on a daily base would cause adverse cardiovascular outcomes, a recent study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association revealed.
The study conducted on more than 400,000 Americans found that people who used marijuana for more than four years had a 42 percent increased risk of stroke and a 25 percent increased risk of heart attacks.
Abra Jeffers, study co-author, commented, “People think marijuana is harmless. It is not.” She revealed that, “We found that using marijuana is as bad as smoking tobacco cigarettes.”
“While we reported the results for daily use, any use increases risk — with more days of use per month associated with higher risk,” Jeffers added.
Senior study author Salomeh Keyhani, professor of medicine at UCSF, commented, “cannabis use is increasing in both prevalence and frequency, while conventional tobacco smoking is declining.”
Presently, recreational use of marijuana is permitted in 24 states in the U.S. It is reported that as of 2019, around 4 percent of Americans use cannabis on daily basis, while 18 percent use it annually. Most of the daily users are of age 18 to 34.
“Those are the individuals who typically don’t go to their primary care doctor because they’re young and they think they’re invincible,” Robert Page, the American Heart Association chair for the study said. “And that’s what alarms me.”
Page said that the patients should be more transparent about their cannabis use with their healthcare providers. He also urged the healthcare officials to not be judgemental in such cases.
He advised that, “There needs to be shared decision-making between the patient and the provider with regard to cannabis use. Patient-centered, non-judgmental conversations are what is really needed.”
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