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Showing posts with the label DRUG CULTURE

Marijuana edibles pose major risk to elderly patients with cardiovascular disease

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With marijuana being legalised across North America, there is a changing perception that sees people believing that weed is the safest recreational drug. However, those assumptions are now challenged in an article in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology that examine the story of a patient who developed chest pain and myocardial ischemia after consuming most of a marijuana lollipop. Speaking about it, expert Alexandra Saunders said, "Marijuana can be a useful tool for many patients, especially for pain and nausea relief . At the same time, like all other medications, it does carry risk and side effects. In a recent case, inappropriate dosing and oral consumption of marijuana by an older patient with stable cardiovascular disease resulted in distress that caused a cardiac event and subsequent reduced cardiac function." According to the report, a 70-year-old man with stable coronary artery disease, taking appropriate cardiac medications at most of a lollipop infused w

Smoking during pregnancy linked to early puberty in kids

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Here's another reason to stop smoking when pregnant! A recent study has linked earlier puberty in children with mother's smoking during pregnancy . The Aarhus University study has been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. "We found that children of mothers who had smoked more than ten cigarettes a day during pregnancy, on average entered puberty three to six months earlier than the children of non-smokers," says Nis Brix, who is one of the researchers behind the study. "Early puberty can be associated with an increased risk of a number of diseases as an adult, such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and certain types of cancer," said Nis Brix. Brix hopes that the study's results can be used as another motivating factor to stop smoking among women who are planning on becoming pregnant. "It is known that smoking is harmful to the unborn foetus . Smoking is, among other things, associated with an in