Study finds that marijuana and e-cigarettes can harm the heart as seriously as traditional cigarettes

E-cigarettes and marijuana have harmful effects on the heart similar to those caused by tobacco cigarettes, opening the door to abnormal heart rhythms, reports a team of researchers at UC San Francisco.

The study is published November 15, 2022 in the journal Heart Rhythm.

“We found that cigarettes, e-cigarettes, and marijuana greatly interfere with the electrical activity, structure, and neural regulation of the heart,” said lead author Huiliang Qiu, MD, Ph.D., a postdoctoral scholar in the UCSF Division of Cardiology. “Often, any single change can lead to arrhythmia disease. Unfortunately, these adverse effects on the heart are quite comprehensive.”

For the heart to work well, it must pump blood efficiently and with correct timing. The heart has its own electrical control system resulting from nerves that control it. It also has the ability of electrical impulses to move through the heart muscle in a way that…