Jackson, MS: The use of alcohol is implicated in the majority of substance use-related cardiovascular deaths, according to data published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Researchers affiliated with the University of Mississippi Medical Center analyzed substance use-related mortality trends from 1999 to 2019.
They reported that alcohol likely played a role in 65 percent of all cardiovascular deaths related to substance use. Opioids were implicated in 14 percent of deaths and cocaine was linked to just under ten percent of deaths. Cannabis was associated with fewer than one percent of all substance use-related cardiovascular deaths.
“Substances evaluated in our analysis, including alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, opioids, and stimulants, have multiple cardiovascular effects and are associated with the development of cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, microvascular disease, and coronary artery disease, particularly in the case of cocaine and stimulants,” the study’s authors concluded. “Among the substances evaluated in our study, alcohol was the most common to be associated with SU [substance use] + CVD [cardiovascular disease]‐related death, more than four times opioids, the second‐highest substance. … [C]annabis had the lowest SU + CVD-related absolute AAMR [age adjusted mortality rate].”
Data assessing cannabis’ potential role in adverse cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, has yielded inconsistent results. For instance, the findings of a meta-analysis published in May concluded, “Cannabis use insignificantly predicts all major cardiovascular adverse events,” including myocardial infarction and stroke. By contrast, data published more recently in the journal Addiction reported that adults engaged in problematic cannabis use possess an elevated risk of adverse cardiovascular outcomes.
Similarly, data published this month in the European Heart Journal reported that pain patients using medical cannabis products possessed a slightly increased risk of atrial fibrillation (AFib), whereas longitudinal data reported just days earlier in the journal Heart Rhythm identified no elevated risk.
Full text of the study, “Temporal trends in substance use and cardiovascular disease-related mortality in the United States,” appears in the Journal of the American Heart Association.