New Studies Prove Cannabis Is Good For Your Heart

cannabis for hearth health studies

The leading cause of death in the United States is heart disease.

It claims more than 610,000 lives each year, yet many of these cases could have been prevented. Every 37 seconds, one person dies due to cardiovascular disease, and 1 in every 4 deaths is attributed to heart disease.

We know today that stress management, a healthy diet, exercise, and good sleep are critical ways of keeping your heart in good shape. But despite this, hearts are a fragile muscle. So many diseases affect the heart, and what’s sad is that far too many of the medications prescribed by doctors actually don’t improve the quality of life of patients and worse, affect the heart.

Cannabis also saves money: heart disease alone costs $219 billion in the United States; this includes medication, loss of productivity, and health care services.

But the rise of research on cannabis and its numerous health benefits promise new hope. It could be a breakthrough medication we have all been waiting for, as many tout the positive effects of cannabis and CBD on inflammation, strokes, blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and many more.

A recent study out of Quebec in Canada yielded interesting results. Researchers from the Canadian National Public Health Institute analyzed the relationship between cannabis consumption and its impact on triglyceride levels and waist circumference. They analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a nationally represented database.

The researchers found that the subjects who consumed cannabis at least 4 times a week had lower triglyceride levels and smaller waistlines compared to former consumers or non-users.

This isn’t new; a study dating back to 2011 out of France also found that frequent cannabis consumers had lower chances of obesity. The study, conducted by researchers from the Louis Moureir Hospital located in Colombes, France, involved studying cross-sectional data from 2 studies of American adults. The surveys represented a valuable data set from a combined 50,000 respondents, and the study’s authors analyzed factors such as their ethnicity, age, marital status, tobacco use, and educational level.

“The prevalence of obesity was significantly lower in cannabis users than in nonusers (16.1 percent versus 22 percent in the NESARC and 17.2 percent versus 25.3 percent in the NCS-R),” they wrote.

“The proportion of obese participants decreased with the frequency of cannabis use,” they wrote, adding that study participants who admit to using cannabis “three days per week or more” had a reduced chance of being obese compared to those who reported “no cannabis use in the past 12 months.”

“Even if cannabis consumption increases appetite, people using cannabis are less likely to be obese than people who do not use cannabis.”

Cannabis and Obesity, Diabetes

High blood sugar levels are a major denominator when it comes to heart disease and diabetes.

But according to studies, cannabis consumers have a lower chance of suffering from the fatal consequences of both heart disease and diabetes.

A 2019 study conducted by investigators from Arizona State University together with the University of Pittsburgh analyzed the connection between cardiometabolic risk factors and long-term marijuana consumption among a cohort of 253 men. The researchers found that greater exposure to cannabis was linked to lower cholesterol levels, lower body mass index, and other risk factors.

These findings support an older study whose results found that regular cannabis consumption have better chances of preventing diabetes compared to those who consume only occasionally or do not at all.

The investigators from Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center analyzed the link between fasting glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance and cannabis among a cohort of 4,657 males.

“Subjects who reported using marijuana in the past month had lower levels of fasting insulin and HOMA-IR [insulin resistance], as well as smaller waist circumference and higher levels of HDL-C [insulin resistance] as well as smaller waist circumference and higher levels of HDL-C [high density lipoprotein or ‘good’ cholesterol]. These associations were attenuated among those who reported using marijuana at least once, but not in the past 30 days, suggesting that the impact of marijuana use on insulin and insulin resistance exists during periods of recent use,” they write.

“These are indeed remarkable observations that are supported, as the authors wrote, by basic science experiments that came to similar conclusions… I would like to call on the NIH and the DEA to collaborate in developing policies to implement solid scientific investigations that would lead to information assisting physicians in the proper use and prescription of THC in its synthetic or herbal form,” says Joseph S. Alpert, MD, in a commentary about the study.

CBD For Heart Health

If you are suffering from high blood pressure due to stress, CBD is a great option. CBD has been shown to be helpful in reducing blood pressure, especially when you are exposed to stress.

So if people tell you that cannabis is bad for the heart, these are just some of the many studies you can cite.