If you look anywhere on the internet, you’ve probably noticed that marijuana has a profound effect on a person’s body, and there are some scholarly debates that say that marijuana is not good for cardiovascular health, while others say that it does benefit. So what’s the truth? Let’s discuss this.
High Blood Pressure
Hypertension is a condition where the blood pressure goes over 130 systolic, and the diastolic is over 80 mmHg in the body, and almost half of adults that have high blood pressure suffer from the effects of this. Only about a quarter manage to properly manage the problem, and over half a million deaths cite itself from hypertension as a major factor as well. The prevalence does increase as you get older, and it does increase the risk of heart disease and stroke too. High blood pressure is a major problem for the US population, which is why making sure that the condition is managed is very important.
Cannabinoids and heart Health
Heart health does benefit from cannabinoids. Most of the time, the neurotransmitters do get activated through the usage of the CB1 and the CB2 receptors, making the arteries are THC reducing the effort needed to pump the blood, and is activated when a stress response happens, to protect against the tissues being damages.
THC was actually found in a study that it can help with progressing atherosclerosis, which is plaque buildup within the arteries. The oral treatments with low levels of THC does inhibit this, especially in studies that were found in mice, especially when analyzing the pleotropic immunomodulatory results on the cells that control inflammation. It wsa mediated within the CB2 receptor, which is the main one responsible for immune reception in cells.
How this affects blood pressure.
It’s actually something which has been scientifically established since all the way back in the 1970s, to the point where early research discovered that cannabinoids had immense therapeutic potential that comes with this, especially when regulating blood pressure.
It was discovered that THC did raise the rate of a person’s heart, but this was brief, and then, it would significantly lower the diastolic blood pressure followed by the systolic blood pressure. It actually found that it was an intense drop, and it lasted up to 4 hours, and it was something that actually resulted in ocular pressure and the responses of such in those who were hypertensive.
However, the initial excitement that came with this as a means to treat high blood pressure was soon mitigated through reports which convicted on the efficacy of this.
According to a few animal studies, those that had THC tolerance were actually caused by continued use, and it did negate the hypotensive benefit.
Other research has found that it may not be something that exists for the long term, and that there was no evidence that showed that those who used for the long term were also developing tolerances.
In another paper that wsa peer reviewed, it was discovered that cannabis did cause a spike in the systolic blood pressure, but then they didn’t find any sort of increase in the diastolic kind of blood pressure, and that there were not other indications of marijuana use regularly creating spikes in blood pressure, and the findings actually discovered that marijuana did cause users to get lowered blood pressure levels and it did in turn decrease their heart rate.
It was found that this was something that may be hypotensive, but right now, there is no concrete research on it, so ’we’re still waiting on answers too.
Patten's Blog 