Woman, 22, dies from cannabis-induced vomiting that triggered fatal heart disorder before doctors declared her brain dead READ MORE: Smoking weed daily increases risk of heart attack or stroke by 60% By Cassidy Morrison Senior Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com Published: 14:02 EDT, 25 June 2024 | Updated: 14:27 EDT, 25 June 2024 e-mail 34 shares 43 View comments A chronic marijuana user died after a severe multi-day bout of vomiting and abdominal pain caused a fatal heart rhythm disorder that led to brain death. The 22-year-old woman treated in Canada began using weed at 14 and had been suffering from multiple bouts of severe cannabis hyperemesis syndrome - a condition marked by violent, painful, repeated episodes of severe vomiting - for more than three years.
When she was admitted to the hospital with vomiting and abdominal pain, she developed a specific life-threatening irregular heartbeat called torsades de pointes, which caused her heart to stop. While doctors were able to restart her heart, her brain had already suffered catastrophic loss of oxygen and she was declared brain dead four days later. Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome can develop in habitual marijuana because the drug can cause certain receptors in the brain to malfunction.
In people who first begin using cannabis or those who don't use it regularly, the signals to cannabinoid receptors in the brain and gastrointestinal tract usually continue to function normally. But with chronic marijuana use, those receptors .