Cocaine is probably not the best thing on the planet for your body. It's been linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, and can sometimes make you into someone who thinks they're invincible on a night out.
But this video shows a very creepy side to what happens if you use the drug for a long time. This footage, posted by MEDspiration, is of a heart belonging to a patient who abused cocaine for 15 years.
Credit: Facebook/MEDspiration
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For starters - that heart is about three times the size of a normal, healthy one. But the weird thing is that it continued beating for 25 minutes after removed from the body. The accompanying post reads: "Loss of cardiomyocyte contractility (heart-beat) normally occurs within 60 seconds after the onset of total ischemia (complete lack of oxygen).
"This heart's inability to stop contracting may be due to the adaptation the heart cells underwent due to long term cocaine abuse. Cocaine consumption causes a dramatic rise in heart rate while also decreasing coronary blood flow due to adrenergic vasoconstriction of the vessels.
"It is possible that this heart had become SO adapted to myocardial ischemia over the past 15 years that it became resilient enough to beat without an oxygen supply for 25 minutes! It is truly incredible how adaptive the human body is!"
That is downright scary.
Credit: PA
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When the powder enters your body, it's absorbed into the bloodstream and floods the part of the brain called ventral tegmental area (VTA). Your receptors are then overflowing with dopamine because the cocaine blocks the transporter which regulates dopamine levels. This is what causes that 'don't fuck with me, I'm indestructible' feeling that you get after a line or two.
Your heart rate will jump, along with blood pressure and body temperature. That's a result of the cocaine driving up the amount of norepinephrine in your brain, the body's fight or flight response chemical.
Recently, there have been reports that cocaine with nearly 100 percent purity has been flooding into the UK. Harry Shapiro from charity Drugwise has told LADbible the rising purity is a result of a few factors: "The wholesale price has come down and the reason why that might be, is because of over-production in the producer countries like Columbia.
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"Next to that you've got the various powders that are used to cut powdered drugs like cocaine, the enforcement agencies have been cracking down quite heavily on people who supply those powders to drug traffickers, almost treating them as drug traffickers themselves. So cutting those drugs have become more of a risk."
Now, you might be thinking: 'the better the purity, the less harmful it is for you'. Well, while the drug's high might be much more pronounced, it's certainly not better for you. Mr Shapiro says: "The drug is a powerful stimulant, which is going to impact on heart rate, blood pressure and all those kinds of things.
So, just be aware that while cocaine might give you a small rush, the damage to your heart could be horrific.
Featured Image Credit: WEDspiration