Smoking cannabis could double risk of heart attack, claims study

A research study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal has claimed that adults under 45 years old who consumed cannabis within the last 30 days suffered from nearly double the number of heart attacks than the adults who didn’t smoke up.

The research, published by Canadian Medical Association Journal, raises eyebrows of many as there has been a movement across the world, including the USand Canada, to legalise the use, distribution and production of cannabis for personal use.

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The research notes, “With cannabis use on the rise, thanks in part to the pandemic, and legalization across the US continuing, its potential health risks have become an important area of research.”

The researchers also discovered that consuming cannabis in other ways was also linked to an elevated risk of heart attacks.

“Additionally, this association was consistent across different forms of cannabis consumption, including smoking, vaporization, and other methods such as edibles," study co-author Dr Karim Ladha, clinician-scientist and staff anesthesiologist at St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto in Canada, said in a statement.

"This suggests that no method of consumption is safer than another in this regard,” he said.

The researchers analysed health data from over 33,000 adults ages 18 to 44 who were part of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention surveys in 2017 and 2018.

Of the 17 per cent of adults who reported using cannabis within the previous month, 1.3 per cent later had a heart attack while only 0.8per cent of non-cannabis users reported the same.

“Some people assume that consuming cannabis is safe and can’t harm your body, but that is incorrect," Ladha later told CNN.

“There’s increasing evidence that this could potentially be harmful to you, both in the short term and the long term,” he said.

(With inputs from agencies)