According to a recent study, daily marijuana usage increases a person’s risk of coronary artery disease, or CAD, by a third compared to never using marijuana.
According to lead study author Dr. Ishan Paranjpe, a resident physician at Stanford University, “a growing body of evidence implies that cannabis is not wholly without danger and may actually induce cardiovascular disease.”
The study, which has not yet been published, will be presented at the American College of Cardiology’s annual meeting on Sunday, February 26.
So, the danger for serious cardiac disease must be carefully considered while deciding whether to consume cannabis, according to Paranjpe.
Plaque accumulation on the arterial walls supplying blood to the heart is what causes coronary artery disease. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the most prevalent form of heart disease is CAD, also known as atherosclerosis.
Angina, or chest pain, feeling weak, dizzy, or sick to your stomach, or having trouble breathing are all symptoms of the illness. Yet, according to the CDC, “for some people, the first sign of CAD is a heart attack.”
The All of Us Research Program, run by the National Institutes of Health, aims to collect health data from 1 million people across time.
Participants filled out a survey on their cannabis use when they signed up for the study. Using that data, the research team divided the respondents into five groups: daily users (4,736 respondents), weekly users (2,720), monthly respondents (2,075), occasional users (8,749), and never users (0 respondents) (39,678 people). A few years later, the researchers made a comparison between those categories and the patients’ medical records.
They discovered that compared to non-users, everyday cannabis users had a 34% higher risk of receiving a diagnosis of coronary artery disease.
According to the study, those who smoked marijuana just once a month or fewer exhibited no appreciable danger.
The findings were revealed after researchers took into account various coronary heart disease risk factors, including age, sex, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, obesity, smoking, and alcohol consumption.
In contrast to earlier studies on the subject, the study used Mendelian randomization (MR) to calculate risk, according to Paranjpe in an email. To ascertain the causative impact of a risk factor, the MR approach examines gene variants known to be connected to the risk factor.
“While cannabis and CAD have been related in prior studies, there are a number of possible confounders that could account for this association. This link may be directly causative, according to our MR research,” Paranjpe added.
According to the organization, marijuana smoke contains many of the same chemicals that scientists have discovered in tobacco smoke and are detrimental to the lungs and cardiovascular system.
In accordance with additional study, smoking marijuana increases the risk of strokes and heart failure in patients who already have underlying heart disease and triggers heart attacks.
