A new study suggests that regularly smoking cannabis or consuming edibles may increase the risk of heart attack.
The team from the University of California San Francisco who made the find warns it is ‘more evidence cannabis use is not benign.’
In the new study, researchers found people who smoked marijuana or took edibles at least three times a week had damage to their blood vessels, which are vital for delivering oxygen and nutrients from the heart to every organ and tissue.
Their blood vessels worked half as well compared to those who never used cannabis.
This causes blood vessels to constrict, raising the risk of blood clots, which can lead to coronary artery disease, heart attacks and stroke.
While recent studies have linked cannabis smoking to heart disease, the new report is one of the first to show heart damage from edibles containing THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis.
A new study from the University of California San Francisco found smoking marijuana and taking edibles reduced blood vessel function, raising the risk of a heart attack (stock image)
Cardiovascular diseasecauses one in every four deaths in Australia
Matthew Springer, study co-author and professor of medicine at UCSF, told CNN: ‘We’re looking at a window in the future, showing the early changes that may explain why smoking marijuana has been linked to later heart disease.’
The warning comes as the number of Australians using cannabis continues to rise.
Daily cannabis use in Australia increased from 14 per cent in 2019 to 18 per cent in 2022–2023, according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
Among Australians who used cannabis in the past 12 months, the largest proportion – 32 per cent – used it only once or twice a year, while approximately one in seven – or 14 per cent – used it every day.
Cannabis continues to be the most widely used illicit drug in Australia, with 11.5% of people reporting recent use in 2022–2023.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes one in every four deaths in Australia.
In 2021, it was the underlying cause of 42,700 deaths, representing 25 per cent of all deaths that year, according tho the heart foundation.
On average, one Australian dies from CVD every 12 minutes, which amounts to 118 deaths each day.
