A recent study published in the journal Diabetologia has established a link between marijuana usage and prediabetes.
What to Make of Marijuana
The potential health consequences and benefits of marijuana have long been the subject of debate, and these questions are becoming more and more relevant as the legalization trend continues in the American political sphere. Medical professionals and recreational users often point to the treatment properties of the drug, which has proved effective in minimizing nausea, improving appetite, and reducing muscle spasms, among other positives.
Others stress the adverse effects of marijuana usage, pointing to studies that link cannabis to increased risk of schizophrenia as well as to long-term reductions in memory function and cognitive functioning in the frontal lobe of the brain, which is associated with mature decision making and executive planning.
Many of the potential adverse effects of marijuana depend on the frequency and form of ingestion. Obviously, smoking weed will harm your lungs and cardiovascular system, because smoking anything is pretty bad for your body. Similarly, studies indicate that the more frequently you use marijuana, the more likely you are to experience memory problems and the like. But there are any number of variables that could also be influencing these connections.
For example, individuals experiencing greater struggles with mental health (including addictive tendencies) are more likely to abuse substances, creating a chicken-or-egg conundrum in the case of linking marijuana to psychosis. Similarly, a huge portion of marijuana users are also regular tobacco smokers, and we are all quite familiar by now with the health consequences of smoking tobacco.
Essentially, no one is quite sure exactly what to make of cannabis in terms of health consequences. Researchers are still hard at work determining what they can about its effects on the human body, both long-term and short-term.
Study by Study: An Examination of Prediabetes and Marijuana
This time, a research team from the University of Minnesota set out to investigate whether or not there is a discernible link specifically between marijuana usage and prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, as the relationship between the drug and the disease has been another question producing conflicting answers. The conclusions were based on data collected in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which began in 1985, monitoring over 3,000 participants between the ages of 18 and 30 on a yearly basis. The study is currently in its thirtieth year of data collection.
After controlling for potentially confounding factors like body mass index, race, gender, and lifestyle choices, the researchers found that participants currently using marijuana experienced a 65% increase in their risk of developing prediabetes, compared to individuals who had never used marijuana. Those who did not currently use marijuana but had used it at least 100 times in their lives showed at least a 40% increased risk.
Prediabetes is essentially a condition in which blood sugar levels are elevated above normal regulations, but not enough to classify the problem as type 2 diabetes. Prediabetes can be damaging, but it does not always lead directly to the onset of type 2 diabetes. The more serious condition can be avoided with proper lifestyle choices.
As always, more work needs to be done to understand this connection. For example, the increased risk for prediabetes could, in part, be due to alterations in eating habits that occur as a result of heavy marijuana usage, rather than to the cannabis compound itself. But still, there is a definitive link between the two, which is a significant starting point.
