What Are the Real Health Effects of Cannabis?
As legal use of cannabis in the United States has increased in recent years, so have concerns about potential negative health effects. This includes the impact on the heart. Two new studies found that people who use cannabis are more likely to have a heart attack compared to people who do not use the drug.
These findings are from a retrospective study that will be published in the journal JACC Advances and a meta-analysis of 12 previously published studies being presented on March 29 at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session. In the retrospective study, researchers found that cannabis users under the age of 50 were more than six times as likely to have a heart attack compared to non-users. The meta-analysis showed that cannabis users had a 50% increased risk of a heart attack.
The meta-analysis included 12 previous studies, with over 93,000 cannabis users and 4.5 million non-users. This is the largest pooled study of its kind to date.
Excerpted from Healthline
