According to the American Heart Association’s new scientific statement, smoking marijuana is not good for your heart.
In a statement, Dr. Rose Marie Robertson, the deputy chief science and medical officer for the American Heart Association said, “The American Heart Association recommends that people not smoke or vape any substance, including cannabis products, because of the potential harm to the heart, lungs and blood vessels.”
The new scientific statement, published Wednesday in the AHA journal Circulation, examined existing research on the connection between cannabis and the heart.
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Clinical pharmacologist Robert Page II, who chaired the medical writing group for the statement said, “Using weed has the potential to interfere with prescribed medications” as well as “trigger cardiovascular conditions or events, such as heart attacks and strokes.”
Page also said that anyone wanting to use marijuana should discuss possible health risks with a professional first. Page is a professor in the department of clinical pharmacy and physical medicine/rehabilitation at the University if Colorodo Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Aurora, Colorado.
Page added, “If people choose to use cannabis for its medicinal or recreational effects, the oral and topical forms, for which doses can be measured, may reduce some of the potential harms.”
He also said, “It is also vitally important that people only use legal cannabis products because there are no controls on the quality or the contents of cannabis products sold on the street.”
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Studies analysed by the medical group discovered heart rhythm abnormalities like tachycardia and atrial fibrillation, which occur within an hour of smoking THC-containing weed.
THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive substance within marijuana that creates a “high.”
Tetrahydrocannabinol is also why one can have a faster heart rate and causes an increase in the heart’s need for oxygen.
For someone with an existing heart disease, the risk is higher and smoking weed has triggered heart attacks as well as a higher risk of strokes and heart failure in people with underlying issues, according to several other studies.
“The public needs fact-based, valid scientific information about cannabis’s effect on the heart and blood vessels,” Page said.
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The medical group wants marijuana to be a part of the US Food and Drug Administration’s tobacco control and prevention efforts so that there is a strict age restriction on who can purchase weed.
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