Weed is not good for your heart, studies say

[nms]

Actually, let me start. I'll link an article and we'll discuss it. Try to find problems with it and try to derive possible conclusions from it, either in tune with the peers or not.

This one is nice, everyone can see it as it's published for free and needs no credentials to access:

Cannabis‐based medicines for chronic neuropathic pain in adults

This review is one of a series on drugs used to treat chronic neuropathic pain. Estimates of the population prevalence of chronic pain with neuropathic components range between 6% and 10%. Current pharmacological treatment options for neuropathic pain ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I think it touches some of the topics discussed here. For a start, let's say like most other articles I've read, the sample size is small and the results are not entirely conclusive, but maybe it'll be a starting point to stop ad homineming each other.

Cannabis‐based medicines may increase the number of people achieving 50% or greater pain relief compared with placebo (21% versus 17%; risk difference (RD) 0.05 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.00 to 0.09); NNTB 20 (95% CI 11 to 100); 1001 participants, eight studies, low‐quality evidence). We rated the evidence for improvement in Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC) with cannabis to be of very low quality (26% versus 21%;RD 0.09 (95% CI 0.01 to 0.17); NNTB 11 (95% CI 6 to 100); 1092 participants, six studies). More participants withdrew from the studies due to adverse events with cannabis‐based medicines (10% of participants) than with placebo (5% of participants) (RD 0.04 (95% CI 0.02 to 0.07); NNTH 25 (95% CI 16 to 50); 1848 participants, 13 studies, moderate‐quality evidence). We did not have enough evidence to determine if cannabis‐based medicines increase the frequency of serious adverse events compared with placebo (RD 0.01 (95% CI ‐0.01 to 0.03); 1876 participants, 13 studies, low‐quality evidence).

21% vs 17% is a 4% difference between real cannabis and placebo. I find this weird, when comparing to pharmaceutical drugs.

10% with cannabis withdrew vs 5% with placebo, so could this mean that cannabis may cause harm? If we assume the sample is valid, what could we link this difference too?

Note how the study clearly mentions the limits of itself, clarifying how it possibly renders the study inconclusive.

Cannabis‐based medicines probably increase the number of people achieving pain relief of 30% or greater compared with placebo (39% versus 33%; RD 0.09 (95% CI 0.03 to 0.15); NNTB 11 (95% CI 7 to 33); 1586 participants, 10 studies, moderate quality evidence). Cannabis‐based medicines may increase nervous system adverse events compared with placebo (61% versus 29%; RD 0.38 (95% CI 0.18 to 0.58); NNTH 3 (95% CI 2 to 6); 1304 participants, nine studies, low‐quality evidence). Psychiatric disorders occurred in 17% of participants using cannabis‐based medicines and in 5% using placebo (RD 0.10 (95% CI 0.06 to 0.15); NNTH 10 (95% CI 7 to 16); 1314 participants, nine studies, low‐quality evidence).

As for secondary outcomes, now we se a 6% difference for between cannabis and placebo. It's starting to get meaningful.

As to nervous system adverse events, we get double as muchf rom placebo?

More alarming is psychiatric disorders ocurring in 17% vs 5%. Many studies assess this with similar results. Could it be the drug? Is it that people more prone to using cannabis have mental conditions(studies exist on this)?

The potential benefits of cannabis‐based medicine (herbal cannabis, plant‐derived or synthetic THC, THC/CBD oromucosal spray) in chronic neuropathic pain might be outweighed by their potential harms. The quality of evidence for pain relief outcomes reflects the exclusion of participants with a history of substance abuse and other significant comorbidities from the studies, together with their small sample sizes.

It seems that some effort was put into excluding extremes, but as it seems, I'm not alone in thinking the benefits "might be outweighed by their potential harms".


Note: I still am not finished with reading the article, but let's go through the methods, results and see if all this effort really means anything? I'm willing to do this, for this article and any other, because I believe in evidence. Do we all?

PS: Check referneces and bring other unrelated articles to the mix to make this more interesting. Feel free to hypothesize biological reasons for the data we find.

 

[C No Ego]

Actually, let me start. I'll link an article and we'll discuss it. Try to find problems with it and try to derive possible conclusions from it, either in tune with the peers or not.

This one is nice, everyone can see it as it's published for free and needs no credentials to access:

Cannabis‐based medicines for chronic neuropathic pain in adults

This review is one of a series on drugs used to treat chronic neuropathic pain. Estimates of the population prevalence of chronic pain with neuropathic components range between 6% and 10%. Current pharmacological treatment options for neuropathic pain ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I think it touches some of the topics discussed here. For a start, let's say like most other articles I've read, the sample size is small and the results are not entirely conclusive, but maybe it'll be a starting point to stop ad homineming each other.



21% vs 17% is a 4% difference between real cannabis and placebo. I find this weird, when comparing to pharmaceutical drugs.

10% with cannabis withdrew vs 5% with placebo, so could this mean that cannabis may cause harm? If we assume the sample is valid, what could we link this difference too?

Note how the study clearly mentions the limits of itself, clarifying how it possibly renders the study inconclusive.



As for secondary outcomes, now we se a 6% difference for between cannabis and placebo. It's starting to get meaningful.

As to nervous system adverse events, we get double as muchf rom placebo?

More alarming is psychiatric disorders ocurring in 17% vs 5%. Many studies assess this with similar results. Could it be the drug? Is it that people more prone to using cannabis have mental conditions(studies exist on this)?




It seems that some effort was put into excluding extremes, but as it seems, I'm not alone in thinking the benefits "might be outweighed by their potential harms".


Note: I still am not finished with reading the article, but let's go through the methods, results and see if all this effort really means anything? I'm willing to do this, for this article and any other, because I believe in evidence. Do we all?

PS: Check referneces and bring other unrelated articles to the mix to make this more interesting. Feel free to hypothesize biological reasons for the data we find.

right away you are seeking peer review research for illegal plant life .... not there / not happeneing . NIDA has controlled most research on the plant and that is smoke only ( harm research )
as to pain = Depolarization induced suppression of inhibition of neurotransmitter release ( DSI)
and too- depolarization induced suppression of excitation ( DSE) .
as cannabinoids are second messengers the depolarization of them into retrograde signaling is how they can stop pain
you can see this too via researcfh of = pro resolving lipid mediators ( resolvins) . these are cannabinoids without stating on the label as such

 

[nms]

Alright, I quit, but no one can say I didn't try.

 

[Shadooz]

right away you are seeking peer review research for illegal plant life .... not there / not happeneing .

French and not used to those peer review research, who is "illegal plant life" ?

@nms the issue with this study. except it gives poor quality evidence. it's an agglomeration of too many different multifactoriel studies. As chronic neuropathy pain have not one specefic causality.

 

[nms]

I agree that is a very good point. But if you read the whole study you will find they not only address this issue but clarify on a study by study basis the results found. Here's a table that resumes the result, comparing placebo vs non placebo on the different points analysed by the different methods:

Cannabis‐based medicines for chronic neuropathic pain in adults

This review is one of a series on drugs used to treat chronic neuropathic pain. Estimates of the population prevalence of chronic pain with neuropathic components range between 6% and 10%. Current pharmacological treatment options for neuropathic pain ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This is very interesting data. So upon a first analysis looking at both statistical methods we find that very little data is clinically significant. Very rarely do we get an overall positive or negative result on both ends of the CI.

As for the patient impression, we can see a small to moderate improvement that is clinically significant only for spinal cord injury.

We do see small improvements on HIV polyneuropathy and polyneuropathy of various aetiologies, both related. As well as plexus pain. There appears to be some tendency on pain intensity to be reduced, but it's not clinically significant.

We can see there is a clinically significant increase in withdrawals from adverse effects from most types.

No health related quality of life improvements have been confidently measured.

A very slight improvement on sleep problems for plexus injuries. Keep in mind that we're talking about a 141 sample.

A definite improvement has been seen on chemotherapy‐induced polyneuropathy, a well known case where doctors frequently prescribe cannabis. Still we have a very limited sample size.

We have yet not looked study by study on possible sample limitations.

Risk of adverse effects has been increased in all single types, and it is clinically significant data, with even the lower limits of the CI showing increased adverse effects.

Same happens for nervous system disorders, a very worrying data point.

On psychiatric disorders we find some data that is not clinically significant but some that is, that also portrays an increase in psychiatric disorders.

This does address the problem with the agglomeration as it does reflect each specific study. We can also look into the methods and possible sample limitations and excluded groups study by study. This information is all present. We can also compare to other drugs for the same purpose and find much more inspiring results.

From these results I wouldn't feel very confident prescribing cannabis as a treatment for any of these conditions. I'd feel more inclined for polyneuropathy, but given the small sample, wouldn't bet on it. Who disagrees and why, considering the data at hand?

 

[C No Ego]

French and not used to those peer review research, who is "illegal plant life" ?

@nms the issue with this study. except it gives poor quality evidence. it's an agglomeration of too many different multifactoriel studies. As chronic neuropathy pain have not one specefic causality.

Cannabis plant- ( cannabaceae )
cb1 directly involves nerve endings . voltagae gated/ ligand gated neurotransmitters . Ionotropic .
cb1 ( THC ) for nerve related pain in CNS
cb2 ( CBD) for inflammation based pain in immunological system
we have determined ther are 300 total cannabinoid receptors each capable of being toggled by efferent molecular structures ( C-21 Terpenophenolic moieties )

 

[ginolicious]

I think he was making a joke and merging COVID with AIDS lol.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

weed doesn't seem to affect my heart. i usually hit 105% of theoretical max heart rate doing my aerobics. could be my all glass, temperature controlled vape, or eating right and exercising regularly. but what do i know?

the problem with studies, imho, is the epidemiology of the group - they are not healthy to begin with. 70% of all americans are overweight, obese or morbidly obese. i find it hard to draw conclusions based on whatever is going on in their bodies.

tl;dr - there is no such thing as being "healthy" fat

 

[nms]

So if a sample were(no study in the world would pick such a sample, so if you really think this is the problem, I have to strongly disagree and provide all the studies linked before as proof) to be made of entirely overweight (IMC above 30) people from the US(both aren't true in the study I most recently linked), even though both the control and the treated groups consist of similar samples of overweight people from the US, data that measures the differences between both groups is not valid?

Anyway, not even worth replying to that. I have a proposition that would easily give you an answer to whatever your performance measure appears to be(I don't know nothing about theoretical max heart rates), but as long as you keep whatever that measure is consistent, attempt to stop cannabis for 2 months, then measure it and compare both. Change nothing but your vaping habits.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

I don't know nothing about theoretical max heart rates

theoretical heart rate = 220 - age
in my case, age = almost 73, or 147 beats per minute, and i maintain 105 beats per minute for 30 minutes.

since i am just an anecdote, your proposition does not provide useful data.

 

[nms]

It does provide insight to you, as you would be able to determine, for yourself if cannabis does actually have any effect on your heart rate when exercising or not, as long as stopping consumption is the only change you make. Obviously we can't transpose that data to someone else. It's not like you're self-assessing whether your heart rate is high or low based on a possibly faulty perception. If you take measurements(same exercise, same time, same conditions, several measurements over different days for both conditions), change nothing else, it's a controlled environment, I see nothing anecdotal about it, do you?

 

[Hippie Dickie]

I see nothing anecdotal about it, do you?

yes, since it is only about me, it is anecdotal. just not an experiment i am interested in doing. i have a lifestyle and a performance standard, as long as i meet my performance standard, there is no need to change my lifestyle. besides, THC is anti-cancer, everybody know that!

 

[nms]

Anecdotal is you saying THC is anti-cancer(and obviously not everyone knows that, because I don't , unless you consider me such substandard that I can't even be considered a person.. ), or implying that THC benefits your heart rate without backing it up with even a simple experiment. I'm not in any way saying you have a bad lifestyle, or that you should change it, just proposed a way for you to back up your opinion.

We don't need to agree to respect each other though, and your opinion is still valuable and welcome.

 

[Hippie Dickie]

unless you consider me such substandard that I can't even be considered a person

i was being facetious with my THC/anti-cancer comment. i did not mean to be disrespectful. however, i do take THC as RSO (Rick Simpson Oil) for melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma, as needed.

i don't feel a need to backup my opinion about vaping weed for 20+ years not being harmful.

 

[nms]

I understand and didn't take it as disrespectful. I'm sorry to hear about your condition and most sincerely hope your treatment works, whatever it is and that you get better soon.

And it was not about forcing you to back up your opinion, I was just trying to get into a more factual discussion.

 

[Shadooz]

@nms @C No Ego u both use "we" in ur argumentation XD

This study, which is not heart related, show no prescription benefice for chronic neuropatic pain, and that's all.

@C No Ego u quote me without answering ...

@Hippie Dickie @nms
-cannabinoid trigger the self behaviour of cells over the general constriction. Which could trigger the apoptosis when failed (cancer avoiding more than "anti"). it's not a cytotoxic injection that will still be needed.. dolipran-morphine comparison...
-For IMC, cannabis involve behaviour change, which make the psychatric data of @nms study irrelevent, (no graduation..)
Laziness and hungriness on overweight people will be a side effect, especially for heart disease. So IMC is defenetly a sample separation, for heart, less for neuropathy.

 

[vapirtoo]

Weed is not good for the heart!?
From my statistical universe of one, I have two friends
all the same age 68 that smoke and vape weed daily.
We all have good health insurance and make sure that we have annual
medical check-ups. None of us have heart problems although we all take
blood pressure meds. Our doctors are always amazed at our chart numbers.
So my universe says keep doing whatever you have been doing. IMHO

 

[C No Ego]

Weed is not good for the heart!?
From my statistical universe of one, I have two friends
all the same age 68 that smoke and vape weed daily.
We all have good health insurance and make sure that we have annual
medical check-ups. None of us have heart problems although we all take
blood pressure meds. Our doctors are always amazed at our chart numbers.
So my universe says keep doing whatever you have been doing. IMHO

look up Dr David Allen ... retired hart surgeon that has been helping the cannabis cause ... claims protection from the plant up to thirty days after initial ingestion
@Shadooz not sure what you are saying to me ... you asked to describe the " illegal plant" = I wrote cannabis plant

 

[Shadooz]

@C No Ego one of my thought but, how u said it, it sounded like a lobby "illegal plant life".. with the "not there".
So what was the problem, except it's not heart related ?

 

[C No Ego]

@C No Ego one of my thought but, how u said it, it sounded like a lobby "illegal plant life".. with the "not there".
So what was the problem, except it's not heart related ?

I was explaining how peer review research is not ther for an illegal plant life that the only tests performed or allowed were harm only NIDA smoke studies looking at smoke trails and smoke soot and saying oh how bad that is ...

 

[Shadooz]

I still don't get you... all those studies were performed and allowed, and agregated in this peer review. And they were not to show

oh how bad that is

, But trying to find use of cannabinoid

 

[C No Ego]

I still don't get you... all those studies were performed and allowed, and agregated in this peer review. And they were not to show

, But trying to find use of cannabinoid

trying find use of cannabinoid = the therapeutic index for phytocannabinoids is 40,000/50,000 to 1 ... they are that safe , that capable of maintaining therapy without being toxic or causing negative side effects that then blocks said therapy ( opposite of many pharmas drugs) .
phytocannabinoid is non selective metabolite that can not in any way force a cb receptor ( harm) but will go where cells need then as they non selcectivlly metabolize as an arachidonic acid moiety . from my research into this and one of the many reasons you find me posting this all over the net is the safety profile of cannabis as proven for very long while people still need more studies more tests to prove that NIDA is correct in all their years of watching smoke and people get sicker waiting fort hem to bring out the actual biochemistry research that led to drugs made ETC....

 

[Shadooz]

Usefullness =/= safety
That index put remifentanyl at 33000:1... i can easily kill u with it...
The use of cannibis as medicine is still marginal compared to the recreactive one... meaning it can be use don't mean it's usefull...

 

[C No Ego]

Usefullness =/= safety
That index put remifentanyl at 33000:1... i can easily kill u with it...
The use of cannibis as medicine is still marginal compared to the recreactive one... meaning it can be use don't mean it's usefull...

completwely different however based on how fast it acts - " due to its rapid metabolism and short-acting half-life the likelihood of becoming abused is quite low. Nevertheless, there have been some documentations of remifentanil abuse.[18][19] "

phytocanabinoids are still there in some people after 120 days

 

[Shadooz]

Not as effective, they stay that much due to their lipophilia.
The cannabis have short effective time too, more with edibles.
Why it's hard to prescribe cannabis with vaporizer...
but as recreative drug (democratizing), the interaction mapping have still a way to make.. our last concern about safeness, which are not integrated in your "therapeutic index".