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does cannabis use disorder increase risk of severe covid symptoms?
2 minute read
people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, obesity or sickle cell disease, those who smoke tobacco and individuals over the age of 65 are known to be at an increased risk of a poor outcome
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by: emma spears
almost 18 months into the global covid-19 pandemic, the list of risk factors for experiencing severe symptoms of the virus is continuing to expand.
new research from the washington university in st. louis suggests that people who have a genetic predisposition to, or an actual diagnosis of cannabis use disorder, (cud) may want to be extra-vigilant.
published in the journal biological psychiatry: global open science, the study sought to examine the factors that may increase the risk of experiencing poorer outcomes after contracting covid-19.
people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, obesity or sickle cell disease, those who smoke tobacco and individuals over the age of 65 are known to be at an increased risk of a poor outcome, per resources such as the b.c. centre for disease control, the canadian government and the mayo clinic. but authors of the new research suggest that those who engage in “problematic cannabis use” may also be at an elevated risk.
investigators employed genetic epidemiological models to gauge whether or not a genetic predisposition to cud may be related to an increased risk of severe reaction, such as hospitalization, to the virus.
the authors combined existing datasets to determine if a genetic predisposition to cud correlated with a higher risk of hospitalization from covid-19, using two sets of data. one of these involved 357,806 subjects, 14,080 of whom were diagnosed with cud; the second involved more than 1.2 million subjects, 9,373 of whom were hospitalized as a result of the virus.
in all, 7 million genetic variants were also studied to assess an association between severe symptoms of the virus and cud, the researchers report.
“problematic cannabis use and vulnerability to serious covid-19 complications share genetic underpinnings that are unique from common correlates,” writes lead author alexander hatoum, a postdoctoral researcher at the washington university school of medicine. “while cud may plausibly contribute to severe covid-19 presentations, causal inference models yielded no evidence of putative causation,” hatoum points out.
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study results suggest two potential conclusions: the genetic predisposition to severe covid-19 and cud are the result of a common biological mechanism, or cud and severe covid-19 are linked due to a causal process.
while further study is needed to determine whether or not direct causation exists, the findings may warrant another look from physicians treating patients with cud.
“we found that a person’s genetic risk for cannabis use disorder is correlated with their risk for covid-19, without having to ask directly about illegal substance use,” hatoum says in a university article, suggesting that cutting down on heavy cannabis use may help mitigate the severity of covid-19 symptoms.
“that the genetic relationship between cud and covid-19 is independent of these factors raises the intriguing possibility that heavy and problematic cannabis use may contribute to severe covid-19 presentations. as such, it is possible that combating heavy and problematic cannabis use may help mitigate the impact of covid-19,” hatoum says. “this information needs to be incorporated into any strategy to defeat this disease.”
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