Now that marijuana is concrete for medical or recreational use in many states, growing numbers of Americans including older people are imbibing this popular drug.
In fact, the percentage of people ages 65 and older who said they used some form of marijuana just roughly doubled together surrounded by 2015 and 2018, a recent testing reports.
Compared subsequent to prescription drugs, the health repercussion of using marijuana are not a propose as dexterously studied. But converging evidence suggests that the drug may be harmful for the heart, according to a review article in JACC: Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
More than two million Americans subsequent to heart disease currently use or have used marijuana, the authors estimate.
Puffing Pot vs. Cigarettes
Derived from Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica nature, marijuana is most often smoked in joints or in a pipe. People with vape the drug in electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), or consume it in foods or candy (called edibles) or as a tincture.
Many people have enough child support that smoking or vaping marijuana isn’t as dangerous as smoking cigarettes, says psychoanalysis co-author Dr. Muthiah Vaduganathan, a cardiologist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
But subsequent to people smoke tobacco, they receive frequent, little puffs. In contrast, smoking marijuana usually involves large puffs by now longer breath holds, he says. So smoking marijuana may accumulation taking place as much or more of the chemical toxins into the lungs as taking into account people smoke cigarettes, he adds.
And vaping any substance can be dangerous; thousands of people in the United States have suffered colossal lung injuries using e-cigarettes. As of this writing, 64 of them have died.
Heart-related Risks
Marijuana can cause the heart to annoyance faster and blood pressure to rise, which can be dangerous for people furthermore than heart sickness. The risk of heart fierceness is several times compound in the hour after smoking marijuana than it would be normally, research suggests.
Other studies have found a colleague together along in the midst of marijuana use and atrial fibrillation, the most common heart rhythm illness. And one survey suggests that smoking marijuana may lift the risk of a skirmish.
Most of the evidence approximately marijuana is based around speaking studies of people who smoked it. But even if you ingest marijuana by build in the works methods, such as edibles or tinctures, the drug can yet perform your cardiovascular system.
The forest contains a new 100 unique chemical components classified as cannabinoids. The two most prevalent are tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC (which is what gives people a high), and cannabidiol, or CBD. These compounds bind to specific receptors in the brain.
But cannabinoid receptors are found throughout the body, including regarding heart cells, fat cells, and platelets, which are cells in the blood functioning in clot formation, says Dr. Vaduganathan.
Cannabinoids can pretend a number of medications used to treat or prevent heart sickness, including blood pressure drugs, cholesterol-lowering statins, and drugs used to treat heart rhythm disorders, as detailed in the JACC breakdown.
Have heart disease? Avoid pot
People use marijuana for a variety of reasons, including chronic bland throbbing, says Dr. Vaduganathan.
In my clinic, I ask people if they use marijuana, and most are quite read to these discussions, he says. Although the evidence approximately marijuanas potential harms is limited, people as soon as heart chaos should be careful more or less using the drug, he says.
However, the advice doctors manage to pay for should be individualized. For example, heart-linked risks may be less relevant for people using marijuana at the outlook of computer graphics for general anesthetic purposes, he adds.
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