Cannabis Consumption Can Help Prevent Metabolic Syndrome, Finds New Study
A new study published in the November issue of the American Journal of Medicine, and published online by the National Institute of Health (NIH), has found that those who currently consume cannabis are considerably less likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome than those who have never used it. Those who have never consumed cannabis are also more likely to have metabolic syndrome than previous cannabis consumers.
According to NIH, Metabolic syndrome is “the name for a group of risk factors that raises your risk for heart disease and other health problems, such as diabetes and stroke. Risk factors include a large waistline, a high triglyceride level, low HDL cholesterol level, high blood pressure and high fasting blood sugar.
For the study, researchers used data from 8,500 individuals aged 20 to 59 who participated in the 2005-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. For the purposes of the study, a participant were classified as having metabolic syndrome if they had at least three symptoms including high triglycerides and elevated blood pressure.
Based on this criteria, 19.5% of participants who had never used cannabis were labelled as having metabolic syndrome. This is compared to 17.5% of past cannabis consumers and just 13.8% of current consumers.
“Among emerging adults, current marijuana users were 54 percent less likely than never users to present with metabolic syndrome”, researchers state. “These findings have important implications for the nation as marijuana use becomes more accepted and we simultaneously face multiple epidemics of obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes”.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, can be found by clicking here.
– TheJointBlog