The drug has becoming increasingly commonplace over the past several years — but researchers stress the need for more caution.

An increasing number of studies are showing that marijuana may not be so harmless after all.

In two new studies, to be presented later this month at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2023, researchers found that regular marijuana use increased the risk of heart attack, stroke or heart failure — even after factors like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity were taken into account.

“Prior research shows links between marijuana use and cardiovascular disease like coronary artery disease, heart failure and atrial fibrillation, which is known to cause heart failure,” lead study author Yakubu Bene-Alhasan, M.D., MPH, a resident physician at Medstar Health in Baltimore, said in a statement. “Marijuana use isn’t without its health concerns, and our study provides more data linking its use to cardiovascular conditions.”

  • Melody FwygonEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    Just by doing a little sleuthing I found out some things that really point to this article being a bit more flawed than one might think.

    From: https://themessenger.com/info/about-us

    The Messenger launched in May 2023. It is owned by JAF Communications, Inc., a privately-owned American digital media company based in West Palm Beach with additional offices in New York and Washington, D.C. The company was founded by James Finkelstein, Chairman and CEO.

    First; the news outlet breaking this story? It’s new. Brand Spanking New. So new that not even Wikipedia would recognize this site as notable.

    The Messenger was founded to champion balanced journalism in an era of bias, subjectivity, and misinformation. The Messenger offers thorough, objective, non-partisan, and timely news coverage of politics, business, health, technology, international affairs, sports, travel, and more.

    A noble ethos; but they really haven’t been around long enough to be able to assign a lean to their content yet. I think this is telling of their goals…to publish articles on topics that they feel are getting biased coverage.

    From: https://professional.heart.org/en/meetings/scientific-sessions

    Scientific Sessions 2023

    Pre-Sessions Symposia & Early Career Day: November 10, 2023

    Scientific Sessions: November 11–13, 2023

    Hmm…

    From the article: https://themessenger.com/health/marijuana-use-heart-attack-heart-failure-brain-issues

    Published 11/06/23 09:08 PM ET|Updated 11/06/23 09:08 PM ET

    HMMMMMmmmmm…

    Yeah these dates don’t match; and the author clearly did not attend this symposium to ask questions or do appropriate research on the matter.

    From: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1006523 (Emphasis added)

    In a secondary analysis, when coronary artery disease was added to the investigation, the risk of heart failure dropped from 34% to 27%, suggesting that coronary artery disease is a pathway through which daily marijuana use may lead to heart failure.

    Hmmm. I’m beginning to suspect this study is still kind of a pre-print and it’s not yet fully finished. Not to mention the issue that this is from a news release and lots of paraphrasing is probably at play here. If I’m understanding this correctly; the primary investigation did not even consider or take into account the effects of coronary artery disease nor would it appear that the study was crafted to screen for or account with people who already have coronary artery disease or similar problems or risk factors.

    “Our results should encourage more researchers to study the use of marijuana to better understand its health implications, especially on cardiovascular risk,” Bene-Alhasan said. “We want to provide the population with high-quality information on marijuana use and to help inform policy decisions at the state level, to educate patients and to guide health care professionals.”

    Hmmmmm. Do we have a bit of an agenda maybe? It’s hard to say for certain; but it sounds like they actually do want to cast doubt on the issue with relatively weak scientific evidence.

    The median participant age was 54 years; 60.9% of participants were female at birth; 70.7% self-identified as white adults; 21.8% were Black or African American adults; 4.2% were Asian adults; 2.2% were identified as more than one race/ethnicity; and 1.1% were from other races/ethnicities.

    I see. So we have an outsized number of older participants; who are far more likely to be at risk for heart problems.

    The study enrollment began in June 2016. Participants were followed from when they enrolled until June 2022, a maximum of approximately 4 years (45 months).

    Ah. Yeah. If we have been paying attention to the four year period between 2016 and 2022, we note that had a pandemic during that period too; which I suspect might also be problematic.

    In a second study, different researchers evaluated data from the 2019 National Inpatient Sample, the largest nationwide database of hospitalizations, to investigate whether hospital stays were complicated by a cardiovascular event, including heart attack, stroke, cardiac arrest or arrhythmia in patients who used marijuana. Researchers extracted records on adults older than age 65 years with cardiovascular risk factors who reported no tobacco use (cigarettes or other tobacco products). This group of patient records were then divided into two groups: marijuana users and non-marijuana users. The marijuana user’s hospital records were coded for cannabis use disorder which can vary from hospital to hospital.

    Yep. Older adults. It feels like they carefully selected subjects and data that would support their conclusions. Obviously this was Not a randomized controlled trial, and it should not be treated like one.