Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

In the UK at the moment, there's a series of adverts and campaigns claiming that "Cocaine increases your risk of having a heart attack by 80 times".

I'm trying to figure out what that statement means, and how to get it in context.

Could that mean that, say if your risk of heart attack on any given night is 0.0000000001%, then taking cocaine on that night would increase it to 0.0000000080%?

Is that due to the heart naturally beating faster when stimulants are in the bloodstream, or is there some other, more damaging quality of cocaine that causes this?

How does all this compare with say, a cup of coffee? Although cocaine releases dopamines in the brain for that rush, I'm not so sure your heart would beat _that_ much faster from a line of cocaine or a triple shot latte.

Does anyone have any opinions, information, or better, medical knowledge about this? While I'd never imagine out goverments "War on Drugs" exagerated or distorted anything in any way, [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] , "Increasing your risk of heart attack by 80 times" is quite a bold and attention grabbing statement. Oh, and no - I don't do, don't intend to do, and never have taken cocaine. I'm just curious as to the reality of this statement.

Ringo

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

I don't know man, but coke definatly increases your heart rate. I'm not exactly the pinnacle of health, and had serios heart palpitations from speed, so I've avoided both in the past couple of years.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

cocains a helluv a drug.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Does increase your heart rate and blood pressure at the same time, if I recall correctly. Neither of those is good, but both in combination must be a lot worse.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Some seemingly unthorough (but what do I know) studies:

http://cocaine.org/blood-pressure/

http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/cont...c0902.104714v1

I don't believe either of those studies translates to 80%, but kind of interesting anyways.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Cocaine can cause coronary vasospasm which can reduce blood flow to parts of the heart. This alone may or may not cause a heart attack but the additional effects of increased heart rate and blood pressure leading to increased cardiac demand can further worsen the situation in the setting of cocaine intoxication (i.e., the heart is working too hard for the bloodflow that it is receiving). Long-term cocaine use has been associated with early atherosclerosis and heart failure. Finally, you're probably more prone to arrhythmias in the setting of active heart damage and excessively stimulated state.

I don't know from where the 80-fold increased risk of heart attack figure is derived.

dizong

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

cocaine is probably not good for you, but I'm not a doctor.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Cocaine works very differently than caffeine. Cocaine basically affects the reuptake of norepinephrine (which directly increases your heart rate). So in other words, the Norepinephrine stays in your system for longer and thus works overtime.

Caffeine on the other hand, is a stimulant (and a minor one at that). It acts primarily by blocking adenosine receptors (adenosine is responsible for , bradycaardia, hypotension, hypothermia, and attenuation fo the responses of the heart, etc... Caffeine has other affects as well, but this is the main one physiologically.

Anyway, long story short, cocaine is MUCH worse for you than a huge load of caffeine.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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I'm not so sure your heart would beat _that_ much faster from a line of cocaine or a triple shot latte.


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Have you ever done coke for an extended period of time, say, longer than a few hours? Its a little different than drinking a latte.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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I don't know from where the 80-fold increased risk of heart attack figure is derived.

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Well it could be derived from actuarial tables of some specific demographic. Like the % of young men who die of a heart attack vs the % of cocaine using young men. The % of cocaine users in the population of young men could also be selectively chosen. They could easily back this up with some statistics. Or just make it up to scare people. That works too.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Cocaine can cause coronary vasospasm which can reduce blood flow to parts of the heart. This alone may or may not cause a heart attack but the additional effects of increased heart rate and blood pressure leading to increased cardiac demand can further worsen the situation in the setting of cocaine intoxication (i.e., the heart is working too hard for the bloodflow that it is receiving). Long-term cocaine use has been associated with early atherosclerosis and heart failure. Finally, you're probably more prone to arrhythmias in the setting of active heart damage and excessively stimulated state.

I don't know from where the 80-fold increased risk of heart attack figure is derived.

dizong

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Well I think you covered a great deal here.

With many of these adverse effects, prolonged and repeated exposure wil dramatically increase your 'risk for a cardiovascular event'.

These risks are based on epidemiological studies where you would compare how many (probably chronic) cocaine users get heart attacks over a certain period of time compared to the overall incidence rate or incidence in healthy people over that same period of time.

The ad campaign is saying that stressing your cardiovascular system with cocaine can lead to dramatically increased risks of cardiovascular damage and disease down the road. This is similar to smoking cigarretes.

www.heartstats.org says:
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The incidence of myocardial infarction (MI) or heart attack varies around the UK, but on average the incidence rate for men aged between 30 and 69 is about 600 per 100,000 and for women is about 200 per 100,000.

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So the chance of a man having a heart attack between 30 and 69 is about 6/1000 = 0.6%. I have a great deal of trouble believing that a stat like this is 80x greater in cocaine users.

One explanation for the 80x stat may be that during late life, because of damage done to the heart and vasculature, cocaine users are far more likely to die of / experience myocardial infarcts rather than dying of cancer, etc.

Another one is that cocaine makes you live 20 years longer, and if you live longer you're more likely to get a heart attack.

The ad dosen't seem to distinguish which one is more likely. ...

look for a reference on one the next time you see it and post it.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

lay off that whiskey, and let that cocaine be!

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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I'm not so sure your heart would beat _that_ much faster from a line of cocaine or a triple shot latte.

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LOL x90.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

you gotta pay to play, bro.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Keep in mind if you do coke on a regular basis you don't usually take a hit and chill, you take a line every hour or so as you feel the urge and wind up staying up all night, lack of sleep is unhealthy on all levels, then sleeping on coke will give you a poor quality sleep that is not recovering.

Also alot of the people I know who do coke work in high pressure enviroments like bartending so any effect on heartrate that coke gives will be multiplied.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

I don't think Coke affects the heart at all.

Sincerely,
Ken Caminiti

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Len Bias [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Keep in mind if you do coke on a regular basis you don't usually take a hit and chill, you take a line every hour or so

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You do mean a line every 5-15 minutes right?

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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I don't think Coke affects the heart at all.

Sincerely,
Ken Caminiti

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Rack me, I'm out!

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Some seemingly unthorough (but what do I know) studies:

http://cocaine.org/blood-pressure/



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"When Is It Best To Take Crack Cocaine?

As a rule of thumb, it is profoundly unwise to take crack-cocaine."

LMAO

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

WTF?

There is perhaps a single predictable time of life when taking crack-cocaine is sensible, harmless and both emotionally and intellectually satisfying. Indeed, for such an occasion it may becommended. Certain estimable English doctors were once in the habit of administering to terminally-ill cancer patients an elixir known as the "Brompton cocktail". This was a judiciously-blended mixture of cocaine, heroin and alcohol. The results were gratifying not just to the recipient. Relatives of the stricken patient were pleased, too, at the new-found look of spiritual peace and happiness suffusing the features of a loved one as (s)he prepared to meet his or her Maker.

Drawing life to a close with a transcendentally orgasmic bang, and not a pathetic and god-forsaken whimper, can turn dying into the culmination of one's existence rather than its present messy and protracted anti-climax.

There is another good reason to finish life on a high note. In a predominantly secular society, adopting a hedonistic death-style is much more responsible from an ethical utilitarian perspective. For it promises to spare friends and relations the miseries of vicarious suffering and distress they are liable to undergo at present as they witness one's decline.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Some more goodies off that same site (I think cocaine.org is basically a pro-ecstacy and other as-yet-uninvented designer drugs site):

Within the next few decades, however, humanity will have the pharmaceutical and genetic opportunity to choose whatever range of the affective axis we wish to occupy as the backdrop to our lives. To date, we have barely glimpsed the potential extremes of the pleasure-pain axis; in the case of the dark side of sentience, it may be hoped (and statistically expected) that we never will. More ambitiously, the new biotechnologies promise to extend our range of choices way beyond tools for crude, unidimensional mood-modulation. For we'll have the tools to re-design the neural basis of our personalities to repair the deficits of natural selection. Even better, ethically speaking, the application of germline hedonic engineering can ensure that parenthood won't entail bringing any more suffering into the world. Misery becomes physically impossible if the genetic code for its biological substrates is missing. Thus having children needn't, as now, entail causing more heartache as well as episodic happiness. Procreation becomes permissible even for the negative utilitarian who finds it impossible to practise ethical parenthood with a Darwinian genome.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

So you're saying I will be able to beat my children, humiliate them in public, and generally do whatever I like to increase their share of life's misery, and they will be so stoned out of their minds that it won't even have any impact either then or in the future?

Hmm, well that's no fun. Guess I'll have to redouble my efforts. Poor things.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

For what it's worth: my roommate used to have quite the coke habit in high school. He was in great shape and played varsity baseball, but did a bit too much one night and had a heart attack. He made it through alright, but maybe that's what the ads refer to.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

didn't Tyrone have a heart attack during his $450,000 crack party?

http://www.susk.net/images/Tyrone_Biggums.jpg

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

everybody's got to die of something...

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Keep in mind if you do coke on a regular basis you don't usually take a hit and chill, you take a line every hour or so

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You do mean a line every 5-15 minutes right?

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Less is more. I can't think of any reason to do more than 3 lines in a night.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

How about this:

you have more than 3 lines in your posession.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Although cocaine releases dopamines in the brain for that rush, I'm not so sure your heart would beat _that_ much faster from a line of cocaine or a triple shot latte.

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This is incorrect. Actually, cocaine blocks the reuptake of the dopamine, so there is an excess amount in the brain. No more dopamine is released than normal, it just takes longer to be re-absorbed.

Anyways, its been said that crack is 500x more addictive than powered coke. Of course that is an arbitrary number as well...

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

Yeah. Coke, crack, the key is moderation. I get full after a few hits. I just get up and say "Night boys, I'm hittin the hay". I know my limitations. Crack is really more of a social thing for me.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Yeah. Coke, crack, the key is moderation. I get full after a few hits. I just get up and say "Night boys, I'm hittin the hay". I know my limitations. Crack is really more of a social thing for me.

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It's really quite difficult to do coke in moderation.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

That's the only way I was ever interested in doing it. It seemed like the kind of thing that could go way too wrong way too fast. Plus I didn't like how regularly it made so many people into hopelessly self-absorbed complete as*holes. I'd rather be the kind of pothead who can't tell his foot from his hand than the total douchebag coke makes so many people.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

I think anything as addictive as coke is simply too overpowering for most people's minds, or will, or whatever, and the incredible high just becomes the focus of your life.

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

My post was a joke. No human has ever walked away from a crack pipe after a few hits. Unless it was their first time and they freaked out or didn't recognize the feeling (like pot it may take a few times).

Re: Cocaine and heart-attacks
 

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Also alot of the people I know who do coke work in low stress enviroments that have absolutely no consequences for failure - if there is such a thing as failure in a job like that - like bartending so any effect on heartrate that coke gives will be irrelevant.

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FYP