Marijuana use associated with increased risk of mortality among acute MI patients
Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 3:22 am | By: Radical Russ
Marijuana use associated with increased risk of mortality among acute MI patients
Boston, MA – For acute myocardial infarction patients wondering if the next heart attack is the big one, maybe smoking marijuana relieves some of that stress and anxiety, but it isn’t helping their chances of living any longer. New preliminary research suggests that marijuana use in acute MI survivors is associated with a three-fold higher risk of mortality after infarction.“For all the thousands and thousands of studies we’ve done on people who have had heart attacks, virtually nobody asks them about their marijuana use,” said lead investigator Dr Kenneth Mukamal (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA). “There is an extraordinary lack of data for exposure to something as common as marijuana. Every single study asks people if they smoke, if they drink alcohol, but we never ask about marijuana.”
Speaking… about the study, which is published in the March 2008 issue of the American Heart Journal, Mukamal said that previous research has shown marijuana to have cardiovascular effects that might pose a risk, particularly to older adults and those with coronary disease, such as an increase in resting heart rate. Other studies have shown transient increases in MI risk, possibly due to carbon monoxide exposure and an increase in heart rate, said Mukamal.
Oral cannabinoid therapy, however, has also been shown to stop atherosclerosis in a mouse model and to play other immunologic roles. With these differing effects of marijuana in mind, the group set out to study the relation between marijuana use and coronary heart disease in 1,913 adults hospitalized with MI between 1989 and 1994. Of these, 52 patients reported marijuana use during the previous year, and 317 died during a mean follow-up of 3.8 years.
In an adjusted analysis, marijuana use was associated with a three times greater risk of all-cause, cardiovascular, and noncardiovascular death following acute MI, and there was a greater risk among those who smoked more frequently.
This study sounds a little fishy to me, but I’ll let Dr. Earleywine take a look at this one before I comment on the analysis and conclusions.
However, if I take these headlines at their word, and believe that people who’ve had a major heart attack ought not smoke marijuana, well, then, okay. I imagine there are all sorts of usually harmless activities heart attack victims should avoid.
But this study doesn’t separate the marijuana use from the smoking of marijuana. What about vaporization? Or eating medicated edibles? All questions I’ll present to Dr. Earleywine in next week’s Stash, so stay tuned for his analysis next Wednesday.
