Cannabis and Hypertension

Hypertension is one of the major causes of death prematurely, and there are chances that you could get it. So what can it do to the body? Is it that risky? Read on to find out the relationship.

What is Hypertension as a Condition?

This is known as high blood pressure. The blood pressure is how the blood forces the heart to beat and push blood around. The higher this is, the higher your blood pressure will be.

Heart attacks, stroke, aneurysm, and other conditions are a result of this. It does cause stress on the heart muscles and arteries, and it causes issues with the arterial walls.

This is something that a lot of people have, almost a third of people in the world do, so it’s a big problem. While diet and exercise does beat this, there are definitely other things that you can do. The main focus here is that you need to tackle the health condition, and also make sure that you consider other treatments if the condition gets bad.

Hypertension and blood pressure are not always the same, since hypertension and high blood pressure need a 140/90 mmHg in order to qualify as that. Sometimes, when we’re stressed or not doing well, it can get elevated, but the thing is, for long periods of time, that’s when it becomes hypertension. Sometimes when we’re anxious it increases, but that doesn’t mean it’s hypertension.

Does Cannabis Affect It?

Well, sort of. There is still being research to determine this, but one of the big things is that there are many factors which go into it.

There is the ECS of course, and cannabis binds to this, and that does play a role in the cardiovascular area of the body, including your blood pressure.

In the short term, there was a study done where two rates were given THC, and then they were looking at the blood pressure reduction.

While it did show that under some conditions, there was a blood pressure reduction, but there wasn’t really a sign that it works for hypertension, just short term spikes.

Most people usually smoke or vape the weed, while the rats were injected with this, and with smoking or vaping, there are risks.

There is a chance that the blood pressure will increase after the initial ingestion, but then it disappears and then reverses in those who use it a lot. Maybe there are other factors that go into this.

If there are people who smoke spliffs, which is a mixture of weed and tobacco, will notice the elevation since nicotine is a very powerful stimulant on this.

In another study, it was also found that in the short term effects of this, cannabis may increase this, and it was also found that some users would have a higher systolic blood pressure after consuming this, but there wasn’t an effect on the diastolic factors.

Why does this happen? well cannabis does vasodilate, which causes the blood vessels to enlarge, so it’s why there is more blood pushed through. It also, however, was found in other research that in those who were over 60 or so, hypertension was a lot lower after the consumption of cannabis. The reductions were seen about three hours after consumption, and during the night.

The pain and stress relief probably was to blame for this, since it of course does help to lower blood pressure whereas stress and other elements, especially pain, may cause a rise.

There is still a lot that many don’t know about this, and it’s still something people are exploring.