San Diego, CA: Cumulative lifetime cannabis use is not associated with an elevated risk of high blood pressure, according to longitudinal data published in the journal Hypertension.
Investigators affiliated with the University of California at San Diego assessed the relationship between cannabis use and hypertension in a cohort (the CARDIA study) of over 2,800 participants. Subjects were assessed at baseline and repeatedly over the following 35 years.
Consistent with other studies, researchers identified “no association … between cumulative lifetime use of cannabis … and incidents [of] hypertension.”
Other assessments of CARDIA study participants have failed to identify links between long-term cannabis use and increased risks of heart abnormalities, hardening of the arteries, or other cardiovascular diseases.
A prior analysis of over 91,000 French adults, published in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports, reported that both current and lifetime cannabis use is associated with lower blood pressure. Another study , published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, reported that the use of medical cannabis products is associated with decreases in hypertension among elderly subjects.
Full text of the study, “Lifetime cannabis use and incident hypertension: The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study,” appears in Hypertension.