Dennis Thompson Health Day Reporter

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Tuesday, November. Oct. 2020 (HealthDay News) — Marijuana legalization continues to advance in the U.S. on Election Day 2020, but two new studies warn that smoking marijuana may increase the risk of heart disease patients.

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People who smoke marijuana are more likely to experience complications such as excessive bleeding or stroke if they undergo angioplasty to reopen blocked arteries, a University of Michigan-led study found.

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Cannabis smokers who have a heart attack or who need to reopen blocked arteries also have a greater risk of subsequent heart disease, according to a second study of National Hospital data.

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The two studies are scheduled to be presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) online meeting Nov. 13-17. Findings presented at meetings are generally considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

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“As marijuana becomes more accessible in the U.S., rigorous research is needed to better understand the effects of marijuana use on cardiovascular health,” said Sang, lead author of the study. Dr. Gune Yoo said learning for the first time. He is an internal medicine resident.

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Arizona, Montana, South Dakota all voted last week to approve recreational use of marijuana, and marijuana is now fully legal in 14 states and the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, voters in Mississippi and South Dakota approved medical marijuana, making medicinal marijuana legal in 35 states and Washington, D.C.

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Yoo points out, but there are still many unknowns about how marijuana affects people’s health.

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For their study, Yoo and his team analyzed statewide registry data from more than 113,000 Michigan patients undergoing angioplasty between January 2013 and October 2016. Of these, nearly 4,000 patients (3.5%) reported smoking marijuana within one month of surgery.

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During angioplasty, doctors pass a tube up a patient’s artery to the narrowed or blocked area, and then inflate a small balloon to push the blockage open.

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Patients were 54 percent more likely to suffer from potentially dangerous excessive bleeding if they had recently smoked marijuana.

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These patients were also 11 times more likely to have a stroke after angioplasty, although the overall risk remained low, with approximately 0.3 percent of marijuana users having a stroke.

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“The odds are significantly increased. The absolute difference is small, but a devastating complication for patients who have suffered excessive stroke,” said study co-author and lead clinical associate Director Dr. Hitinder Gurm said officials at the University of Michigan.

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The second study evaluated data from the largest publicly accessible hospital records database in the United States to understand the use of marijuana in patients with heart disease.

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Researchers found that 67 percent of heart attack survivors who used marijuana had a subsequent heart attack, compared with 41 percent of those who did not use marijuana.

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Researchers found that marijuana users were also more likely to go to the hospital for another round of angioplasty or bypass surgery.

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“Cannabis users have more frequent heart attacks and cardiac interventions, even though they are younger and have fewer risk factors for heart disease,” lead researcher Dr. Rushik Bhuva said in AHA News release. He is a cardiology fellow at Wright Community Health Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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However, not all data related to marijuana use is negative.

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Yoo’s study found marijuana users were less likely to suffer acute kidney injury from angioplasty than non-smokers, while Bhuva’s study found marijuana users suffer from high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.

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We still know very little about how marijuana affects the body, researchers say.

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“We know from previous research that cannabis affects multiple organ systems in the body, including the heart, including platelets,” Yoo said. “This is an important research question that requires further study.”

? Before learning more, patients and physicians should be wary of potential marijuana-related side effects, said Robert Page, AHA cannabis expert and professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Colorado Aurora.

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“I treat marijuana as a pharmacist, like any other drug, when you prescribe any drug, it can have drug interactions and side effects,” he said.

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