‘A fair warning should be made so that the people who are consuming cannabis know that there are risks,’ a researcher says.
A recent study released by a prominent cardiology organization found that regular cannabis users are more likely to suffer heart attacks than people who don’t use the substance.
In a news release issued on March 17, the American College of Cardiology said it came up with its findings after carrying out a study of 4.6 million people combined with a meta-analysis of 12 other studies.
Its study of 4.6 million people, published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), found that users of cannabis younger than age 50 had a sixfold higher chance of suffering a heart attack than non-cannabis users and a 50 percent increased risk of heart failure, the group said.
Noting that marijuana usage has been on the rise across the United States as some states have made the drug legal to use recreationally, researcher Ibrahim Kamel of Boston University likened cannabis to smoking cigarettes.
“Asking about cannabis use should be part of clinicians’ workup to understand patients’ overall cardiovascular risk, similar to asking about smoking cigarettes,” he said in a statement. “At a policy level, a fair warning should be made so that the people who are consuming cannabis know that there are risks.”
The team, which used data from the TriNetX global health database, looked at participants aged 50 and under who had no major heart problems and healthy blood pressure levels on the outset of their research efforts. They also had no history of coronary artery disease, did not use tobacco, and had normal cholesterol levels. Namely, they surveyed more than 4.6 million people aged 50 and younger, of which more than 4.5 million do not use marijuana and 93,000 do use it.
After following up after an average of three years, they found that people who used cannabis saw a sixfold increase in heart attacks and a 50 percent increased chance of heart failure.
“When the researchers pooled the data from all studies and analyzed it together, they found a significant positive association, with active cannabis users being 1.5 times as likely to suffer a heart attack compared with those who aren’t current users,” the news release said.
But Kamel said that people “should have some caution in interpreting the findings in that cannabis consumption is usually associated with other substances such as cocaine or other illicit drugs that are not accounted for,” adding that patients should tell doctors about their cannabis usage.
