I know you work hard to make the best lifestyle choices so you can improve your health destiny and longevity.

And there's lots of information out there on how to do just that.

So where do you start?

Well, we start with the facts.

Welcome to the Nutrition Facts podcast.

I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger.

My job is to bring you the latest peer-reviewed nutrition and health research and share it with you here.

Today on the podcast, we've got some of the latest research on the effects of marijuana.

First up, we look at a strange phenomenon involving a temporary quintupling of heart attack risk associated with cannabis smoking.

Here's the story.

Does the so-called dark side of cannabis include stroke?

Here said to be associated with non-synthetic marijuana, by which I assume they mean marijuana.

There have been case reports of artery damage due to the vasoconstrictor effect of cannabis, something that's been well documented.

One study found cannabis users had a hundred times greater odds of suffering from something called multifocal intracranial stenosis,

where the arteries inside your brain clamped down at multiple points.

But that's a rare condition.

What about strokes?

The lack of high-level evidence regarding the adverse effects of marijuana usage on brain artery health has led to this notion that recreational marijuana may not be a problem, so they decided to put it to the test.

You want high-level evidence? They said, well, how about a study of literally millions of pot smokers?

Okay, then.

And they found that recreational marijuana use did seem to be associated with an increased risk of being hospitalized with an acute ischemic stroke.

But this may just be among those who smoke regularly, at least once a week.

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