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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Switzerland: Cannabis offers heart disease hope
Daily Mail
Thursday 07 Apr 2005 The main active ingredient in cannabis protects arteries against harmful changes that lead to strokes and heart attacks, new research has revealed. Scientists believe THC, or similar cannabinoid chemicals, could in future provide new treatments for heart disease. But they warn that simply smoking cannabis does not offer the same benefit and may actually damage the heart. THC, or delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is known to affect the brain and make cannabis-users "high", but new research shows that it also has an influence on blood vessels. A study of mice revealed that the compound blocks the process of inflammation which is largely responsible for the narrowing of arteries. Inflammation combines with fatty deposits to produce obstructive "plaques", a condition known as atherosclerosis, which can block arteries to the heart, causing angina and heart attacks, or to the brain, leading to strokes. Atherosclerosis is the primary cause of heart disease and stroke in the western world, accounting for up to 50% of deaths from both conditions, which are the biggest killers in the UK. Together they claim almost 240,000 lives a year and cause more than one in three deaths. American critical-care expert Professor Michael Roth, from the University of California at Los Angeles, urged caution when considering cannabis as a heart disease therapy. "The findings... are striking, but they should not be taken to mean that smoking marijuana is beneficial to the heart," he wrote in an accompanying article.
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