An official website of the United States government
Here’s how you know
Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock (
) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first study looking at THC’s impact on vascular function in humans,” said senior study author Matthew Springer, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
“We’re looking at a window in the future, showing the early changes that may explain why smoking marijuana has been linked to later heart disease,” Springer said. “It appears the act of smoking and the THC itself both contribute to those changes in different ways.”
Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the component of marijuana that provides a high. Prior research on mice found damage to blood vessels that supply oxygen to vital organs after exposure to marijuana smoke, Springer said. Whether marijuana smoke would impact the human vascular system, however, was unknown.