Analysis: Medical cannabis associated with reduced health care utilization in chronic pain patients
The sustained use of state-authorized medical cannabis products is associated with improved quality of life and reduced healthcare utilization among chronic pain patients, according to data published in the journal Pharmacy.
A team of researchers affiliated with the medical cannabis telehealth company Leafwell and George Mason University in Virginia assessed health care utilization trends in chronic pain patients with and without prior medical cannabis experience. An estimated one in three pain patients residing in medical cannabis access states report using marijuana as an analgesic agent.
Investigators determined that patients who had used medical cannabis products during the prior year reported fewer urgent care visits, fewer emergency department visits and fewer “unhealthy days per month” than did those with no prior cannabis use history.
“The findings of this study suggest … that medical cannabis is likely an effective treatment option for patients with chronic pain,” the study’s authors concluded. “Moreover, we found that, in addition to an increase in QoL (patients’ quality of life), medical cannabis exposure is associated with lower risk of urgent care and ED visits, when comparing patients who used medical cannabis for at least one year to cannabis-naïve patients. This underscores the potential for not only QoL gains associated with medical cannabis use, but also positive downstream effects on the health care system resulting from treatment.”
A prior analysis by Leafwell researchers concluded that state-level access to medical cannabis is associated with significant reductions in healthcare premiums.
Full text of the study, “Medical cannabis use and healthcare utilization among patients with chronic pain: A causal inference analysis using TMLE,” appears in Pharmacy. Additional information on cannabis and pain management is available from NORML’s publication, Clinical Applications for Cannabis & Cannabinoids.
Study: Cannabis consumption not associated with elevated risk of adverse cardiovascular events in older adults
Older adults who consume cannabis are no more likely to suffer from adverse cardiovascular events, such as heart attack and stroke, as compared to nonusers, according to longitudinal data published in the journal Circulation.
Researchers affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco assessed cannabis use and cardiovascular health in a cohort of 4,285 older veterans (mean age: 67.5) with a history of coronary artery disease. Approximately 25% of study participants (1,015 veterans) reported current cannabis use, while the remaining 3,122 participants did not. Subjects were followed for an average of 3.3 years.
Contrary to investigators’ expectations, current cannabis use was not independently associated with elevated rates of heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular death, or all-cause mortality once researchers adjusted for covariates.
“To our knowledge, the current study is the only study to examine the association of cannabis use with longitudinal cardiovascular disease outcomes among persons with established CAD (coronary artery disease),” the study’s authors concluded. “In this older cohort of veterans with CAD, smoking cannabis was not associated with the composite outcome of AMI (acute myocardial infarction), stroke and cardiovascular death, a finding that was consistent across multiple measures of cannabis exposure.”
Although individual studies assessing cannabis use and cardiovascular health have yielded inconsistent results, a literature review of 67 papers published in The American Journal of Medicine concluded, (M)arijuana itself does not appear to be independently associated with excessive cardiovascular risk factors.” Most recently, an analysis of over 720,000 adults published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM) Focus concluded that current cannabis consumers do not possess a greater risk of heart attack as compared to nonusers.
Full text of the study, “Association of smoking cannabis with cardiovascular events among veterans with coronary artery disease,” appears in Circulation.
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