BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
Recreational drinking, smoking, and drug use is linked to premature heart disease in young people, particularly younger women, finds research published online in the journal Heart.
Those who regularly use 4 or more substances are 9 times as likely to be affected, the findings indicate.
The numbers of new cases of heart disease (atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease) have been increasing in young adults, but the potential role of recreational substance use isn’t entirely clear.
To probe this further, the researchers explored whether the recreational use of tobacco, cannabis, alcohol, and illicit drugs, such as amphetamine and cocaine, might be linked to prematurely and extremely prematurely furred up arteries.
They drew on information supplied to the 2014-2015 nationwide Veterans Affairs Healthcare database and the Veterans with premaTure AtheroscLerosis (VITAL) registry.
Extremely premature heart disease was defined as an ‘event’, such as a heart attack, angina, or stroke before
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