Cannabis Use and Diabetes

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Study: Cannabis Use Inversely Associated With Diabetes

East Lansing, MI: A history of cannabis use is inversely correlated with diabetes mellitus, according to an epidemiological review published online ahead of print in the journal Epidemiology.

Investigators at Michigan State University, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics performed a meta-analytic study assessing cannabis use and diabetes in the general population.

"Recently active cannabis smoking and diabetes mellitus are inversely associated," they determined. Authors estimated that subjects with a history of cannabis use were about 30 percent less likely to have diabetes compared to non-using subjects.

"Current evidence is too weak for causal inference, but there now is a more stable evidence base for new lines of clinical translational research on a possibly protective (or spurious) cannabis smoking-diabetes mellitus association suggested in prior research," they concluded.

An observational trial published in the American Journal of Medicine in 2013 reported that subjects who consumed cannabis possess favorable indices related to diabetic control compared to those without a history of recent marijuana use.

Separate observational trial data published in 2012 in the British Medical Journal reported that marijuana users had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and possessed a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption, even after researchers adjusted for social variables such as subjects' ethnicity and levels of physical activity.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, "Cannabis smoking and diabetes mellitus: Results from meta-analysis with eight independent replication samples," appears in Epidemiology.