Relationship between opium addiction and cardiovascular risk factors

Narcotics abuse is associated with major problems in society worldwide. Among addictive substances, opium has been used and abused for centuries. Unfortunately, the lay people-and even a limited number of physicians believe that opium has a number of beneficial effects on cardiovascular diseases. The aim of the present investigation, as a cross-sectional study, was to verify this hypothesis. In this cross-sectional study which was carried out in the cardiovascular research center of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 360 smokers addicted to opium were taken as the case group and an equal number of smokers not addicted to opium as the control group. The blood morphine concentration in both groups was measured by ELISA method. The obtained data was analysed by SPSS software, using Student-t test, and ANOVA at the significant level of P≤0.05. The results show a direct correlation between blood morphine concentration and period of addiction. HbA1C, CRP, factor VII, apo B, Lpa, were significantly higher in the case subjects compared with their level in the controls. The levels of hemoglobin glycolysis factors HbA1c, CRP factor VII, LPa, fibrinogen in the cases were significantly higher than the corresponding levels in the controls (P<0.05). HDL and anti-oxidative capacity were also significantly lower in the case group (P<0.05) but FBS w3as insignificantly lower than the controls. The results show that opium has a deleterious effect on new cardiovascular risk factors (Lpa, CRP and apo B). Although it seems to improve a few of them, the effects are of a short duration and are principally not genuine.