Another reason not to use cocaine

http://health.yahoo.com/news/61765

Cocaine Can Harm Heart's Blood Vessels


May 9, 2005 0354 PM PST
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter


MONDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Cocaine users seem to have an unusually high incidence of coronary artery aneurysms, weakened areas of heart blood vessels that raise the risk of heart attacks, new research finds.

The study included 191 men and women in their 40s who had angiography, an X-ray of blood vessels, because of known or suspected heart disease. Aneurysms were found in 34 of the 112 persons who reported using cocaine and only six of 91 nonusers.

The study, by physicians at the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, appears in the May 10 issue of Circulation.

That higher incidence of aneurysms may help explain why cocaine users have been found to have a high risk of heart attacks, said Dr. Timothy D. Henry, director of research at the foundation.

Henry suggested two possible explanations for the increased incidence of aneurysms.

"Cocaine use causes periodic hypertension, periods when the blood pressure goes up sharply," he said. "Having such episodes of high blood pressure over the course of time can lead to formation of aneurysms."

Cocaine is also known to damage the endothelium, the delicate lining of blood vessels, which could contribute to the weakening of the arteries, Henry said.

Whatever the explanation, the report is "another reason to tell people how dangerous cocaine is," he said.

The study cited estimates by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that 27.7 million Americans -- 12 percent of those 12 and over -- had used cocaine at least once in 2001, and that 1.7 million had used it in the previous month.

Most studies of cocaine and heart damage have concentrated on immediate problems, Henry noted. The new study raises the possibility that even short-term use can cause damage decades later, he said. One man in the study who was found to have an aneurysm said he had used cocaine heavily for a two-year period 15 years earlier, Henry said, so the drug "can cause long-term damage that you have to live with the rest of your life."

Dr. Murray Mittleman, director of the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Research Unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said the new study "provides clues to the mechanisms of heart attacks occurring in people who are cocaine users."

"It is an important step forward in understanding the biology of what happens in cocaine use," Mittleman said.

But follow-up studies are needed because of the way the study was carried out, he said.

"They didn't start out looking at people who used cocaine," Mittleman said. "They looked at people who had angiography for some clinical reason. It is possible that this is a special group of cocaine users."

Nevertheless, the report "gives some insight into why we observe a higher rate of cardiac problems in cocaine users," he said.

 

You can clean a 3000 square foot house in 7 minutes with enough coke.

 

With meth, you can do it 4 times in that same amount of time.

 

Damn. Oh yeah, I forgot to ask Plu what the first reason not to do coke was.

 

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask Plu what the first reason not to do coke was.

Len Bias could be one of them first reasons.

 

Len Bias just couldn't handle his drugs (3). People who really do coke aren't gonna blow out their heart during a binge, but I hear they eventually burn nice holes in their nasal membranes and fuck up the pleasure sensors in their brains.

 

Cause momma said not to. :imagestor

 

Damn. That's like the only thing a guy can't argue with.

 

never seen cocaine do anything but kill people. It usually is just a matter of how much money you got going in as to how long it will be before you are dead.
Some people can do an occasional line but those people are few and far between.

 

You take Sally and I'll take Sue
Their ain't no difference between the two
Cocaine, running all 'round my brain

Headin' down Scott, turnin' up Main
Looking for that girl that sells cocaine
Cocaine, runnin' all 'round my brain

Late last night about a quarter past four
Ladanyi come knockin' down my hotel room door
Where's the cocaine--
It's runnin' all 'round my brain

I was talking to my doctor down at the hospital
He said, "Son, it says here you're twenty-seven,
But that's impossible
Cocaine-- you look like you could be forty-five"

Now I'm losing touch with reality and I'm almost out of blow
It's such a fine line-- I hate to see it go
Cocaine, runnin' all 'round my brain