Edible enjoyers, beware.
In a new paper published in the journal JAMA Cardiology, researchers from the University of California at San Francisco found that ingesting cannabis-infused goodies can carry similar risks to your heart as smoking the stuff.
For years now, heart experts have warned, based on a growing body of evidence, that smoking cannabis is quite bad for the old ticker — but this study appears to be the first that looked into whether edibles had similar effects.
UCSF's researchers recruited 55 Bay Area denizens who either abstained completely or smoked or ate cannabis a few times a week to see how their hearts fared over three years.
At the end of those three years, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-using cohort as a whole had reduced blood vessel function and were more likely to develop premature heart disease — a finding that dashes the oft-repeated suggestion that eating weed is necessarily better for you than smoking it.
In an interview with the San Francisco Gate, UCSF heart researcher and co-study author Matthew Springer said he was personally surprised to find that edibles showed similar signs of heart damage as smoked cannabis.
"When I first saw the THC result, I said to [lead study author] Leila [Mohammadi], 'Scientifically, this THC result is really interesting but boy does it screw up the public health messaging,'" he laughed.
There were some other curious differences between the smokers and the edible-eaters, however, that makes sussing out the heart-harming mechanism difficult.
Specifically, the researchers found that although the cannabis smoking cohort had changes to their blood serum that were demonstrated to be harmful to their blood cells — which prior studies have also found — the folks who ate edibles did not.
What's more, when testing for nitric oxide, an important blood compound for heart health and immune function, smokers had lower levels, while edible users' levels were normal.
To Springer's mind, those disparities suggest that smoking is a "double whammy" for heart health.
Disparities aside, Springer said he and his colleagues are "pretty confident" that regular cannabis use damages the cardiovascular system regardless of how you ingest it — and "it really does seem like the more you take, the worse it is."
More on weed health: Stoners Vastly More Likely to Have Heart Attacks At a Young Age
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