Does Marijuana Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?
Aug 18, 2023
Does Marijuana Cause Strokes and Heart Attacks?
Health effects of marijuana. The temporary quintupling of heart attack risk associated with cannabis smoking may be due to the increased heartrate, blood pressure, and carbon monoxide levels.https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/ http://nutritionfacts.org/video/The-I …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Resea …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Is-Ma …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Does- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Does- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Does- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/will- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Marij …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/effec …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Smoki …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/does- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/can-c …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/are-c …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/pesti …)https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/Does- …)http://nutritionfacts.org/video/effec …http://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-e …)https://drgreger.org/collections/down … http://nutritionfacts.org/video/does- … and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it.https://nutritionfacts.org/video/does … You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. https://www.youtube.com/subscription _…https://nutritionfacts.org/translatio …https://NutritionFacts.org https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe https://nutritionfacts.org/donate https://nutritionfacts.org/audio www.facebook.com/NutritionFacts.org www.twitter.com/nutrition_facts www.instagram.com/nutrition_facts_org https://nutritionfacts.org/books https://drgreger.org
Content
0 -> "Does Marijuana Cause
Strokes and Heart Attacks?"
7.44 -> Does the so-called dark side
of cannabis include stroke,
12 -> here said to be associated
with non-synthetic marijuana,
15.831 -> by which I assume they
mean, uh, marijuana.
20.16 -> There have been case reports of artery
damage due to the vasoconstrictor
25.36 -> effect of cannabis, something
that's been well documented.
29.2 -> One study found cannabis users had
100 times greater odds of suffering
33.28 -> from something called
multifocal intracranial stenosis,
36.16 -> where the arteries inside your brain
clamp down at multiple points,
40.4 -> but that's a rare condition.
What about strokes?
45.44 -> The lack of high-level evidence regarding
the adverse effects of marijuana usage on
49.6 -> brain artery health has led to this notion
that recreational marijuana may not be
54.32 -> a problem, so they decided
to put it to the test.
58.24 -> "You want high level evidence?" they said.
59.92 -> Well, how about a study of literally
millions of pot smokers? OK, then.
66.08 -> And they found that recreational
marijuana use did seem to be associated
69.92 -> with an increased risk
of being hospitalized
72.72 -> with an acute ischemic stroke,
75.36 -> but this may just be among those who
smoke regularly, at least once a week.
82.08 -> The reason we think it's cause-and-effect
is that the majority of recorded strokes
86.32 -> were during or shortly
after marijuana exposure.
89.28 -> And there are even cases in which strokes
recurred after marijuana re-exposure.
95.04 -> So put all that together and it makes
a convincing case, though you'd really
99.92 -> have to like randomize people to
smoke pot or placebo pot to be sure.
104.56 -> It s like the heart disease story.
106.88 -> A similar temporal relationship has
been found between marijuana use
111.2 -> and the development of heart attacks
and sudden cardiac death, meaning
115.2 -> the heart attacks seemed to happen while
they were using or right afterwards.
120.48 -> However, this is complicated by the
fact that cannabis is often used
124.08 -> in combination with other drugs,
such as alcohol or cocaine.
128.88 -> So you can't just ask heart attack
victims if they were smoking pot
132.64 -> at the time and make the connection
without asking about other substance use.
137.52 -> Within an hour of snorting cocaine,
for example, the risk
140.56 -> of having a heart attack
goes up more than 20-fold.
144.08 -> That's about five times more
than after smoking pot.
148.4 -> The hour after you smoke marijuana
your heart attack risk does appear to
152.24 -> nearly quintuple, but only for that hour.
Then your risk drops down to normal.
159.36 -> OK, but what does that mean? Even
though heart disease is our #1 killer,
165.12 -> the risk of having a heart attack every
hour is only like one in a million
170.24 -> in any particular hour. So even if you
then light up a joint, that may quintuple
176 -> your risk, but that would only bump it
to like 1 in 150,000 risk in that hour,
182.8 -> that's just for that one hour.
184.48 -> So even if you smoked every day,
your annual risk might just go up
188.8 -> a few percent. But why
the increased risk at all?
193.28 -> Well, we've known since the 70s
that within an hour of smoking a joint,
197.76 -> pulse rate goes up about 35%.
201.36 -> Smoking a single joint
increases blood pressure too,
205.36 -> as well as carbon monoxide levels
in the blood of angina patients
209.2 -> and cuts their ability to
exercise nearly in half.
213.12 -> Now is that just because of breathing
smoke, any kind of smoke?
217.6 -> No, smoking a placebo joint, a joint
with marijuana from which the THC
223.2 -> has been removed, only cuts down
exercise capacity like 9%,
228.32 -> compared to cutting the time they could
exercise before the chest pain started
232.08 -> by 48% with the cannabis. So it does
seem to be a specific drug effect.
238.24 -> Now, whether that's as bad as tobacco
we'd never know... until a year later.
244.88 -> Smoking a marijuana cigarette decreased
the exercise time until angina
249.52 -> more than smoking a tobacco cigarette,
252.24 -> which only cut exercise capacity 23%,
compared to 50% after the joint.
259.2 -> This may be because marijuana
puts more demand on the heart;
262.8 -> so, no surprise then, it
was worse than tobacco.
267.84 -> It may also be the carbon monoxide.
271.12 -> Smoking marijuana leads to nearly
five times more carbon monoxide
275.04 -> in your bloodstream than smoking tobacco.
This is because pot smokers inhale deeper
280.56 -> and then hold the smoke in, allowing
more carbon monoxide into your system.
285.68 -> So between that and the cardioacceleration
---the increased heart rate and pressure---
291.52 -> that could account for the accelerated
chest pain in heart disease patients.
296.56 -> Does it have any chronic
effects on our arteries?
300.32 -> Cannabis users do seem to
have relatively stiffer arteries
304.24 -> for their age, suggesting an
acceleration of the aging process,
309.12 -> and we are only as old as our arteries.
313.84 -> Even second-hand marijuana smoke
may be harmful, according to this
318.16 -> recent study in the Journal of the
American Heart Association
320.96 -> entitled "One minute of marijuana
secondhand smoke impairs
324.64 -> vascular endothelial function,"
meaning artery function.
328.48 -> And so there was a call to protect
vulnerable populations, including
332.56 -> the elderly and disabled, and
residents of multi-unit housing,
336.56 -> pregnant women,
and children
338.48 -> even just one minute of exposure to
marijuana second-hand smoke in rats.
346.08 -> So it's not clear how applicable this is,
348.56 -> outside of perhaps not
smoking around your pet.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHYJQ1KXFAw
