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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 5,647
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 Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk
#8394882 - 05/12/08 11:00 PM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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What's next...pot causes athlete's foot??
Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk
May 13, 2008 - Reuters
Heavy marijuana use can boost blood levels of a particular protein, perhaps raising a person's risk of a heart attack or stroke, U.S. government researchers said on Tuesday.
Dr. Jean Lud Cadet of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, said the findings point to another example of long-term harm from marijuana. But marijuana activists expressed doubt about the findings.
Cadet said a lot of previous research has focused on the effects of marijuana on the brain. His team looked elsewhere in the body, measuring blood protein levels in 18 long-term, heavy marijuana users and 24 other people who did not use the drug.
Levels of a protein called apolipoprotein C-III were found to be 30 percent higher in the marijuana users compared to the others. This protein is involved in the body's metabolism of triglycerides -- a type of fat found in the blood -- and higher levels cause increased levels of triglycerides, Cadet added.
High levels of triglycerides can contribute to hardening of the arteries or thickening of the artery walls, raising the risk of stroke, heart attack and heart disease.
The study did not look at whether the heavy marijuana users actually had heart disease.
"Chronic marijuana use is not only causing people to get high, it's actually causing long-term adverse effects in patients who use too much of the drug," Cadet, whose study is in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, said in a telephone interview. "Chronic marijuana abuse is not so benign."
The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said.
The researchers said the active ingredient in marijuana, known as THC, seems to overstimulate marijuana receptors in the liver, leading to overproduction of the protein.
RAISING FUTURE RISK
Cadet said higher levels of the protein in marijuana users could raise future risk for cardiac abnormalities, blood flow problems, heart attack and stroke.
People with major medical or psychiatric illness, alcohol dependency and other drug use such as cocaine or heroin were excluded from the study.
A U.S. group supporting legal sales and regulation of marijuana disputed the findings. Marijuana Policy Project spokesman Bruce Mirken said, for example, the study involved people who were extremely heavy users.
"I think the low end was 78 joints a week. That's 10 or 11 joints a day," Mirken said in a telephone interview.
"We're talking about people who are stoned all the time. We're talking about the marijuana equivalent of the guy in the alley clutching a bottle of cheap wine. If you do anything to that level of excess, it might well have some untoward effects, whether it's marijuana or wine or broccoli," Mirken added.
Cadet's team said the findings suggest long-term harm from marijuana beyond issues such as impaired learning, poor memory retention and retrieval and perceptual abnormalities.
But Mirken said: "Even if you take this finding at face value, it's not at all clear that it has any relevance to the real world because there is still no data showing higher rates of mortality among marijuana smokers. If this was a significant cause of cardiovascular disease, where are the bodies?"
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 asian_raggs
Registered: 03/05/08
Posts: 196
Last seen: 2 months, 27 days
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: veggie]
#8394918 - 05/12/08 11:10 PM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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bullshiiiiit
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todesengel
Eater of Days
Registered: 08/04/05
Posts: 427
Last seen: 12 minutes, 55 seconds
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: asian_raggs]
#8394945 - 05/12/08 11:20 PM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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Quote:
asian_raggs said:
bullshiiiiit
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Overclock22
Here, There andBack Again
Registered: 09/19/07
Posts: 204
Loc: NY
Last seen: 9 days, 2 hours
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: todesengel]
#8395053 - 05/12/08 11:57 PM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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Quote:
8 long-term, heavy marijuana users and 24 other people who did not use the drug.
So now we release studies done on like 40 people? Because those 18 heavy users represent the millions of smokers :/
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He did not laugh as his eyes stopped in awareness of the earth around him. His face was like a law of nature-a thing one could not question, alter or implore. It had high cheekbones over gaunt, hollow cheeks; gray eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, shut tight, the mouth of an executioner or a saint.
If you wake up at a different time in a different place, can you wake up a different person?
Cf. A.C. Doyle "I'll rise above this, you can't keep me down, for I am Divine, and I know it all too well."
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hockeyplyr1057
Stranger
Registered: 03/20/07
Posts: 82
Last seen: 5 hours, 18 minutes
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: Overclock22]
#8395117 - 05/13/08 12:17 AM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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who the hell smokes 350 joints a week???
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Visionary Tools
Kiffah
Registered: 06/23/07
Posts: 2,933
Last seen: 9 days, 40 minutes
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: hockeyplyr1057]
#8395570 - 05/13/08 06:01 AM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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The guys in this study. And of course that's an accurate portrayal of all cannabis users.
It's taken them more than a century to find something bad about cannabis, and even then they lie? These guys just don't give up!
Guys, I'm going to have to paraphrase this, it's from 1984, and it's been a long time since I read the book as it's unplesant. O'Brian is torturing Winston, and he's talking about laws. He says something to the effect of "Why do you think we have so many laws Winston? It's not to protect society, it's so that everyone is a criminal. There are so many laws now that people can't obey them all, it makes it so much easier for when we need to arrest anyone."
Now ask yourself folks, arresting people for consuming plants, but not for booze when it turns people violent (being thrown into a drunk tank does not count). Arresting people for making their own money. Arresting people who ask questions. Is this protecting society, or is this a police state gone too far?
Do we really want to wait until we have NO rights, NO possessions, NOTHING before deciding that might be a good time for revolution maybe if it's not too much trouble?
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In times of universal deceit, the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
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stew248
Registered: 09/28/02
Posts: 1,692
Last seen: 2 months, 5 days
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: Visionary Tools]
#8395833 - 05/13/08 09:02 AM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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Go back to bed America you are now free to do as you're told.
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QuikSilver223
Stranger
Registered: 04/27/07
Posts: 3
Last seen: 3 months, 7 days
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 Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: stew248]
#8396138 - 05/13/08 10:33 AM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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Where i stopped reading "U.S. government researchers said"
Bull shit
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acim2
Stranger
Registered: 04/04/07
Posts: 59
Last seen: 6 days, 6 hours
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Re: Marijuana may up heart attack, stroke risk [Re: QuikSilver223]
#8396367 - 05/13/08 11:40 AM (3 months, 7 days ago) |
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The only study I would consider taking seriously is one that examines the actual rate of heart attacks or strokes compared to non-cannabis users.
This one sounds a lot like the old "fact" that cannabis contains 10 times the number of carcinogens or tar than regular cigarettes....which may be true. But when they studied the amount of lung cancer (maybe COPD too) for cannabis users, it turned out that not only did they not have a higher rate of lung cancer, but it was actually lower. (Not as compared to tobacco smokers, but compared to non-smokers.)
The sad part is that our tax dollars are going to this type of research.
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