Cocaine and heart-attacks

[Ringo]

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

[Tony_P]

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.

[Blarg]

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.

[MINETZ]

cocains a helluv a drug.

[dibbs]

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.

[Albert's Pujol]

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

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



[/ QUOTE ]

"When Is It Best To Take Crack Cocaine?

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

LMAO

[suzzer99]

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.

[suzzer99]

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.

[Blarg]

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.

[dizong]

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