Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack (2025)

> researchers were unable to account for several potential confounding factors including the duration and amount of cannabis use or the use of tobacco or other drugs.

Personally I'd wager a bet it's the tobacco and/or smoking that is the harmful part, but it kind of dumbfounds me they failed to account for "details" like "duration and amount of cannabis use", that feels like a very vital thing to control for. Nothing is good for you in too great amounts, even water, so not taking that into account seems to not really give reliable and trustworthy results.

I wonder about all the confounding effects. In my country (famous for cannabis to be easy to come by (for decades already), and I saw many smoke from age 16 up as I grew up in 90's, 00's). I have always felt that the heavy cannabis smokers had something to compensate; stress, unrest, impending depression, friction with parents. It was never the healthy sporty types with fulfilling relationships, good grades or a nice career that smoke cannabis heavily (like daily). Sure, some of those smoked, but more occasionally.

6x sounds too clickbaity.

but sure, still lets make to account by other "legal" substances (alco, tobacco, cocaine, pharmaceutics and other "lifestyle choices" infecting cardiovascular system) and way they are consumed(smoked, ingested, pure or with say tobacco)

would love see data for a group who consumes cannabis by ingestion and especially not via smoking!

also- do they differ different thc/cbd grades used (high/low thc, "medical")?

im regards "research demonstrates something does this.." for many years alcohol was considered "healthier" over non consumption, just becauses non-drinkers were together with those of abstinent ex-alcholics.. thus average score was lower than for those who drunk minimal amounts and were considered "healthier".

For me, cannabis causes anxiety, and it’s pretty well established that anybody with anxiety or bipolar or schizophrenia should not be using cannabis because it can make these much worse. I don’t suffer anxiety anymore, but there’s plenty of scientific evidence about the relationship between anxiety and cannabis use.

The study controlled for general health but I would note that the odds-ratio reported for cannabis use (4-6) is not so different from the odds-ratio associated when studying high vs. low income cohorts (3-5). This study is not a random blinded clinical trial it's reporting a trend present in ~5 million electronic health records which I assume record yes/no to patients ever telling a doctor they have used cannabis.

I would assume that cannabis use correlates with a few other important heart health variables and we would expect the odds ratio to be lower when accounting for those (alcohol doesn't have an OR more than 1.0, tobacco smoking ~1.5)

I'm sure that cannabis use is bad for cardio health but the reported odds ratio is very high. I personally do not use cannabis.

Would be nice to know how much of a role a sedentary lifestyle plays in it or if it puts everyone at risk regardless of other habits. Maybe this just means you need to do cardio several times a week to keep using THC.

I was under the impression that breathing in burnt particulate of any sort was associated with serious cardiovascular risk? I would think a significant portion of cannabis users ingest smoke very frequently or at least second hand smoke more frequently than people who do not engage at all with a subculture that is largely smoke oriented.

Gave myself temporary afib with pot, wore an Apple Watch for five years to confirm a hard stop resolved the afib (it eventually did after a few months with no changes in dietary/activity and I continued monitoring for five years), sold the Apple Watch. Turns out my adhd’s addiction resistance has the unfortunate downside of being able to OD on pot without noticing it. Glad to see science caught up. No confounding factors like nicotine et al, no recurrence since.

What I find fascinating is how smokers rationalize their behaviour, e. g. "weed is harmless". When they compare it to fentanyl or heroine/cocaine, but compounds are never intrinsically harmless. But you can not get that message across most folks who are smoking weed. It's a somewhat similar issue, to some extent, when you look at sumo wrestlers. These have a significantly lower life expectancy on average than the rest of the society in Japan, but the sumo association does not acknowledge that. It's really strange how the human mind operates.

Some commenters here talking about anxiety, but I think the bigger cause, which many people don't know, is that THC significantly increases your heart rate despite it's usual characterization as a depressant. If I recall correctly (big "if" considering the circumstances hah) my heart rate after smoking would go up by 10-20 BPM (from 65-70 to 80-90) while still feeling relaxed; ~~finding some numbers on this from a reputable source is difficult right now and this symptom is suspiciously missing from the wikipedia page~~.

Edit:

Realized this comment sounds like fear mongering, so decided to dig up some actual sources. The wiki page I needed to find was:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_cannabis

Also, the CDC page mentions it:

https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/health-effects/heart-health.htm...

And links to this paper (though I can't read past the abstract bc no institutional access):

https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1552-4604.2002.tb06005.x

Is there something that can help a habitual cannabis user stop? GLP1s maybe?

Just a few years ago cannabis was presented online as a miracle drug that could cure all physical and psychological diseases. Any criticism of the sacred cannabis was strictly forbidden and dissenters were burned alive in the figurative fire of social media. Interesting how times are changing.

I’m annoyed by the bifurcated regulatory regime

Substances approved by the FDA are done based on specific treatments, with multiple trials and approval per use case

Substances declared scheduled are illegal by the substance itself, instead of per use case

paradoxically because there is no FDA approved use case and almost no way to get one

meaning that places in the US that diverge in legality and are ignored by the federal government have done so without any clinical trial, which would be some level of peer reviewed objective information by use case instead of the whole substance

we can’t even get a simple list of side effects, or a disclaimer about what kind of users shouldn’t use it

only anecdotes

that annoys me and it’s not just about weed

A supplement called genistein mitigates the risk:

https://www.med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/marijuana...

Quit recently after daily use for about 30 years. Took 3 years, and several regiments of hyperbaric therapy, I also took the time to cut out all other stimulants or depressents, alcohol, coffee etc.

Now I stimulate the Vegas nerve in the morning and at night with breathing regiments

Its hard to quit as there is a lot it does for you neurologically like caffeine does but I finally realized it was giving me neuroinflammation and wrecking my sleep quality so I stopped. Likely other long term health problems but those are harder to see/feel.

Now my body does biphasic sleep and I journal at night and read books. Never liked to do either. Get crazy amounts of energy now and people constantly comment on the difference in me.

Goodluck, you can in fact regulate this shit out of your daily habits if you find a way to do a cellular reset. Its not easy.

I quit smoking cigarettes and checked drinking way way easier than cannabis

Not really related, but the other thing I found out recently that cannabis can cause is the worst panic attack I have ever experienced: a DPDR (derealization / depersonalization) panic attack. I’ve had regular panic attacks before. I get one a year, roughly, where I get essentially heart attack symptoms. But this was something else. It felt like something was truly, irrevocably broken with my mind and I couldn’t even describe what. Utterly terrifying. I was a heavy user but dropped it the next day.

Weed used to be a thing where you’re lucky to get a hit passed to you - now you can have as many joints/edibles as you want and people are drugging themselves into psychosis, panic attacks and anxiety disorders.

people just want their recreational drugs

it's as stupid as smoking/vaping and not even black box warnings will get people to stop

now if you need pain management I can respect that 100%

but you need to investigate Palmitoylethanolamide and Geraniol as alternatives

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48700498

for the anxiety crowd: don't buy street weed and avoid sativas

about the 'study': I do not trust anything that comes out of meta studies given how many base studies are found to be either garbage or very lacking in controls. And without knowing an accurate life history it is hard to rule out or quantify damages done much earlier in life.

Like with everything it’s about moderation; But if we are sold cannabis as a “healthy” alternative to cigarettes obviously something will go wrong. At the end of the day, just like with any other drug, it’s about frequency (times / week), time of use (environmental factor), genetic compatibility (strain genetic and your genetics), and most importantly: how do you feel with your self after. Let’s keep it real most stoners smoke till they can’t feel a thing, and their fingers tremble. No shame, I used to do that, yes, for health reasons, I am an ex-medical user. Over time I understood it’s not for me, and I try to live life with sobriety, while I find my highs and my escapes with other stuff. Books, TV shows, wasting time outside at coffee shops. The biggest kicker no body wants to take seriously is corn content if we are keeping it honest.

For such widespread factors any correlation not based on randomised controlled trials should be dismissed. There is so much confounding that you end up measuring smoking vs heart disease. I will not be surprised by the result, cannabis usage increases lung cancer risk.

Literally no mention of ROA. It matters whether they smoke plant matter, vape, use it orally, etc. This, combined with their inability to account for a number of other factors such as tobacco use, makes this study literally useless. Earned a flag from me.

From what I've seen it's faced with a more stony resolve compared to side-effects of many USP substances.

What a vague article. So I take some 10mg gummies every once in a while. Are my chances higher?

quite a few people I know consume edibles as the main form of cannabis. but it seems underrepresented in all the studies I've seen so far. as several others have pointed out, you would think the act of smoking would itself have nontrivial effects on health

I mean, it's good that we have data showing some sort of connection between heart attacks and cannabis, but I appreciate the callout toward the end more:

> Since both studies were limited by their retrospective nature and the meta-analysis was limited by the challenges inherent in pooling data from multiple studies, researchers said that additional prospective studies would help to confirm the findings and determine which groups may face the highest risk.

Here's the thing that both the alarmists and the naysayers keep ignoring: all this data is new, it's recent, and decades of effective global prohibition have meant the only sources of reliable data came from either post-war/pre-prohibition studies (often by Defense Departments) or from "anecdata" gathered retrospectively among large cohorts. We still lack a substantial amount of direct, quality, long-term data on drug use and Nth-order impacts on the body, and these studies are the first steps towards getting more data from higher quality research to draw better conclusions from.

If anything, I try to be quite open with my Doctors about my own use precisely because I know that data is thin and dated, and any contributions from patients in an honest manner is going to help draw better conclusions for healthcare guidance tomorrow. Letting alarmists use these thin precursors as justification for a return to total prohibition is the wrong move.

He who attacks the munchies..

The data is from EMR records. The researchers stated themselves ~ “people should be more forthcoming with their doctors.” I don’t think anything meaningful can be concluded other than most people don’t like having the fact that they have done cocaine on their medical records.

Without a clear mechanism of action, this sure requires monitoring (like any drug), but the conclusions are terribly oversold. Correlation does not imply causation, no matter the sample size

Is this really the largest factor they found in all our medical data?

It's rare to see a study where "no link was found"

I love these articles. When the hundred heavy pot users all come at once with their impartial critiques and studious analyses.

What I like more is some of the people that will agree with me would crucify if the topic was about ADHD meds.

Don't smoke anything kids, it is not good

Come on people, it is a drug. Exercise, cardio, eat well, sleep well, it's your choice the risks you take, but try to balance the good with the bad, if you partake in "bad".

Willie Nelson.

"We should have some caution in interpreting the findings in that cannabis consumption is usually associated with other substances such as cocaine or other illicit drugs that are not accounted for,"

Good. This crap has been to normalized, especially online.

It’s starting to look like THC ( found in gummies, too ) causes vascular problems.