Oklahoma City, OK: Adults who acknowledge having used cannabis within the past 30 days do not possess a significantly elevated risk of heart attack as compared to non-users, according to data published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) Focus.
A pair of researchers affiliated with the University of Oklahoma Hudson College of Public Health assessed the relationship between marijuana use and asthma, depression, and myocardial infarction in a representative sample of 729,240 individuals.
Unadjusted models determined that current marijuana consumers possessed a decreased risk of heart attack and an increased risk of asthma; however, these associations became non-significant once investigators adjusted for covariates (e.g., age, pre-existing health conditions, etc.).
These findings “seem to support previous studies showing that marijuana use was not associated with MI [myocardial infarction],” the study’s authors concluded.
Researchers did identify a statistically significant link between current cannabis use and depression, but they cautioned that this result “does not indicate a causal association.”
Although individual studies assessing cannabis use and cardiovascular health have yielded inconsistent results, a literature review of 67 papers published in The American Journal of Medicine concluded, “[M]arijuana itself does not appear to be independently associated with excessive cardiovascular risk factors.”
Full text of the study, “The association between marijuana use and myocardial infarction, asthma, and depression in racial and sexual minorities: BRFSS 2016-2022,” appears in AJPM Focus.