Cocaine is a well recognized drug and a risk factor for heart attacks (myocardial infarction). Do we know about other drugs? With the ever growing popularity of marijuana, do we know its long term effects and the risk of heart attacks?
We do know that among 2,097 yong patients with heart attacks, about 11% used cocaine or marijuana and 33% used both drugs.
Substance abuse is associated with a high cardiovascular mortality. So is substance abuse a risk factor for developing or having a heart attack? Is it the physicians job to counsel a patient who has a heart attack due to a substance? You bet it is.
More studies need to be done to correlate drugs with cardiovascular heart attack deaths.
Until tomorrow…