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Cannabis Use Not Associated With Increased Risk For Ischemic Stroke In Recent Study

Emily Earlenbaugh

Forbes

Tuesday 13 Oct 2020

Cannabis is becoming increasingly popular as more and more states allow for its legal use. But many worry about potential side effects and long term consequences of using this medicinal and recreational substance. One serious area for concern is the possibility that cannabis may increase the risk for ischemic stroke. While the research on this has been minimal, some case studies and population studies have indicated that cannabis use could be tied to an increased risk factor for ischemic stroke - while other researchers suggest that the tie disappears when other factors are taken into consideration.

But a new study from the University of Mississippi found no evidence for the supposed connection; adding to the research suggesting that cannabis is not an independent risk factor for ischemic stroke.

The authors of the study were interested in learning more about the association between cannabis and ischemic stroke, in part because of how inconclusive previous studies were. Drugs like cocaine and methamphetamines have a well established risk for increasing ischemic stroke, but the research on cannabis has been less consistent.

One piece of evidence suggesting cannabis use may lead to increased ischemic stroke risk comes from case studies reporting these strokes for cannabis users. But causation can’t be determined from case studies. Just because someone used cannabis and had a stroke, doesn’t mean the cannabis caused the stroke. It may have occurred either way or because of a different factor. Still, it does suggest that the connection should be investigated further.

Other evidence for the association comes from population studies, where statistical analyses were performed to see whether cannabis users are more likely to have ischemic strokes than the normal population. These have brought back mixed results.

Some population studies have reported that there is an association between cannabis use and increased ischemic stroke risk. But other studies controlled for other factors that can increase risk (such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, alcohol consumption, migraine, tobacco smoking and age) and found that with these factors accounted for - there was no increased risk of ischemic stroke associated with cannabis use. Still, some of these studies used patient reports of cannabis use, rather than drug tests to make sure they were really using cannabis or not.

The researchers on this new study wanted to gain clarity by doing another population study with both appropriate controls and drug tests, to see if they could replicate the lack of association.

Still, while the results differed from studies that included polydrug users, it was in line with the two previous studies that took these confounding factors into account. All three studies with this methodology found no increased risk from using cannabis alone.

But the authors also point to some limitations of their study. For one thing, their study did not take dose, frequency or length of cannabis use into account. It’s possible a study looking at chronic heavy cannabis use would show some connection, even with the controls, but only future studies will determine that.

The study is also limited by a relatively small sample size. The authors suggest that future studies should continue to investigate whether an association exists, looking at larger groups of patients and assessing whether risks increase for those who use cannabis more often or at a higher dose.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilyearlenbaugh/2020/10/13/cannabis-use-not-associated-with-increased-risk-for-ischemic-stroke-in-recent-study/#591b17796f91

 

 

 

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