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Marijuana use may increase the chances of developing an often temporary but still frightening heart condition, suggests new preliminary research presented this week at the annual American Heart Association Meeting.
Researchers analyzed records from the country's largest database on hospital stays, called the National Inpatient Sample (NIS). They looked at over 33,000 people hospitalized with stress cardiomyopathy, better known as "broken heart syndrome," from 2003 to 2011. When they focused on the 210 patients who reported using marijuana soon before they experienced its telltale symptoms, which closely resemble a heart attack, they found noticeable differences between them and the typical sufferer. Not only were these patients often younger men instead of older women, but they had fewer known risk factors for the condition, like high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes. They were also slightly more likely to go into cardiac arrest and require an implanted defibrillator to prevent later cardiac events (2.4 percent vs 0.6 percent).
These differences could indicate that marijuana alone can increase the risk of stress cardiomyopathy, the researchers concluded. After accounting for other known factors, they estimated that users were nearly twice as likely to develop it than non-users.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 16 2016, @09:05PM
One final point: As the ever-popular mantra goes, "correlation does not equal causation". Specifically, just because pot use and mental health problems are linked doesn't mean that the pot leads to the mental health problems. There are 2 other very reasonable possibilities:
1. People with mental health problems like depression are more likely to use pot because it tends to relieve the symptoms. Dope because a self-medication tool.
2. People who use pot and have mental health problems are linked by some other factor, e.g. abusive parents, lead poisoning, or being stuck in the middle of nowhere in Colorado with nothing to do.
This sure looks like "research" that started with the premise of "drugs are bad, m'kay" and worked backwards to find evidence to justify that position. I don't touch the stuff myself, but I sure wish I didn't have to help pay for the cottage industry of manufacturing evidence to justify the totally silly Schedule I classification of THC.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.