Study Finds Cannabis Use Linked With Lower Diabetes Risk In HIV/HPC Patients
By Paul Armentano, NORML
Marseille, France
: A history of cannabis use is positively associated with a lower risk of insulin resistance (IR) in HIV/Hepatitis C co-infected patients, according to a longitudinal analysis published online ahead of print in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Insulin resistance is a leading cause of type 2 diabetes.
French investigators evaluated the association between cannabis use and IR in a nationwide cohort of HIV/HCV co-infected patients over a 60-month period. Researchers reported that patients with a history of cannabis use – irrespective of frequency – were nearly three times less likely to be insulin resistant compared to non-users.
“Cannabis use is associated with a lower IR risk in HIV/HCV co-infected patients,” authors concluded. “The benefits of cannabis-based pharmacotherapies for patients concerned by increased risk of insulin resistance and diabetes need to be evaluated in clinical research and practice.”
In 2013, researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston similarly reported cannabis use to be correlated with lower levels of insulin resistance in a sample of over 4,600 subjects.
Observational trial data published in 2012 in the British Medical Journal also reported that adults with a history of marijuana use 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.
Full text of the study, “Cannabis use and reduced risk of insulin-resistance in HIV-HCV infected patients: a longitudinal analysis,” appears in Clinical Infectious Diseases.