Frequent Cannabis Use Raises Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke

Frequent cannabis use may raise the risk of heart attack and stroke, astudy in theJournal of the American Heart Association has found.Abra Jeffers, Ph.D., M.S., M.Phil., of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues examined data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) between 2016 and 2020. The BRFSS is an annual telephone survey of adults in which participants report on their health behaviors and whether health care professionals had ever diagnosed them with a health condition. Jeffers and colleagues drew data from 434,104 adults aged 18 to 74 years across 27 states and two territories to assess the association of cannabis use with self-reported cardiovascular outcomes.In the BRFSS, participants were asked how often they had used cannabis in the previous 30 days and whether they had any diagnoses of coronary heart disease or angina, myocardial infarction (heart attack), or stroke. Jeffers and colleagues adjusted for tobacco use and other characteristics, including the participants ’ age, sex, race, body mass index, diabetes, physical activity levels, and socioeconomic status.Among all participants, 4% reported using cannabis daily, and 7.1% reported using cannabis nondaily. Among participants who reported any cannabis use, nearly 75% reported that they mainly used cannabis by smoking it, and approximately 25% reported using cannabis by some method other than smoking, such as vaping, drinking, or eating it.The researchers found that participants who ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: cannabis heart attack heart disease myocardial infarction risk factors smoking stroke Source Type: research