Cannabis Use Is Associated With Lower COVID-19 Susceptibility but Poorer Survival
Da Huang, Roubing Xu, Rong Na
Frontiers in Public Health, doi:10.3389/fpubh.2022.829715
Objectives: To investigate the impact of cannabis use on the infection and survival outcomes of COVID-19. Study Design: Cross-sectional study based on the UK Biobank (UKB) dataset. Methods: We identified 13,099 individuals with cannabis smoking history in the UKB COVID-19 Serology Study. The Charlson-Quan Comorbidity Index was estimated using inpatient ICD-10 records. Multivariable logistic regression characterized features associated with COVID-19 infection. Cox models determined the hazard ratios (HR) for COVID-19-related survival. Results: Cannabis users were more likely to getting COVID-19 (odds ratio: 1.22, P = 0.001) but multivariable analysis showed that cannabis use was a protective factor of COVID-19 infection (adjusted odds ratio: 0.81, P = 0.001). Regular cannabis users, who smoked more than once per month, had a significantly poorer COVID-19-related survival, after adjusting for known risk factors including age, gender, smoking history, and comorbidity (adjusted hazard ratio: 2.81, P = 0.041).
Conclusions: The frequency of cannabis use could be considered as a candidate predictor for mortality risk of COVID-19.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS RN conceived and designed the study. DH, RX, and RN extracted and analyzed the data. DH and RN wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the final version.
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Publisher's Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
References
Cousijn, Kuhns, Larsen, Kroon, For better or for worse? A pre-post exploration of the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on cannabis users, Addiction,
doi:10.1111/add.15387Davies, Klepac, Liu, Prem, Jit et al., Agedependent effects in the transmission and control of COVID-19 epidemics, Nat Med,
doi:10.1038/s41591-020-0962-9Fry, Littlejohns, Sudlow, Doherty, Adamska et al., Comparison of sociodemographic and health-related characteristics of UK biobank participants with those of the general population, Am J Epidemiol,
doi:10.1093/aje/kwx246Imtiaz, Wells, Rehm, Hamilton, Nigatu et al., Cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada: a repeated cross-sectional study, J Addict Med,
doi:10.1097/ADM.0000000000000798Li, Zheng, Ulsa, Yang, Scheer et al., Poor sleep behavior burden and risk of COVID-19 mortality and hospitalization, Sleep,
doi:10.1093/sleep/zsab138Sudlow, Gallacher, Allen, Beral, Burton et al., UK biobank: an open access resource for identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age, PLoS Med,
doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001779Verity, Okell, Dorigatti, Winskill, Whittaker et al., Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis, Lancet Infect Dis,
doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30243-7Williamson, Walker, Bhaskaran, Bacon, Bates et al., Factors associated with COVID-19-related death using OpenSAFELY, Nature,
doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2521-4
