Could Marijuana Reduce Diabetes Risk? (Yes...duh!)

[accessndx]

http://news.yahoo.com/could-marijuana-reduce-diabetes-risk-142810503.html

There's an unexpected link between marijuana use and factors related to Type 2 diabetes that has medical researchers intrigued.

Several studies have found that marijuana users take in more food calories than nonusers, but they still have lower rates of obesity and diabetes, and lower average body mass index (BMI) levels.

In a new study, researchers investigated what effects marijuana and its active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) might have on people's metabolism, especially insulin levels. [5 Diets That Fight Diseases]

Insulin resistance — an important risk factor for diabetes — is a metabolic disorder that occurs when the body's cells cannot properly intake insulin. The American Heart Association estimates 35 percent of U.S. adults have metabolic disorders that include insulin resistance.

To examine the link between THC and metabolism, researchers gathered the results of 4,657 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a cross-sectional study administered annually by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of the study's participants, 579 were current marijuana users, 1,975 had used the drug in the past but not recently, and 2,103 had never tried marijuana. Researchers analyzed the participants' fasting insulin levels, cholesterol levels, insulin resistance and waist sizes.

Multiple benefits seen

The results showed that the current marijuana users had 16 percent lower fasting insulin levels than nonusers, and 17 percent lower insulin-resistance levels.

Additionally, the regular users of marijuana had smaller average waist sizes, and higher levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, aka "good cholesterol."

"These are indeed remarkable observations that are supported … by basic science experiments that came to similar conclusions," Dr. Joseph Alpert, professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, said in a statement.

Interestingly, only the current users of marijuana (not the former users) experienced the positive results, suggesting that the effects of marijuana use on insulin and insulin resistance only occur after recent use.

To test their results, which were published in the latest issue of The American Journal of Medicine, the researchers also adjusted for participants who had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Much more research needed

"After we excluded those subjects with a diagnosis of diabetes … the associations between marijuana use and insulin levels, [insulin resistance], waist circumference and HDL-C were similar and remained statistically significant," Dr. Elizabeth Penner, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.

"Is it possible that THC will be commonly prescribed in the future for patients with diabetes or metabolic syndrome alongside antidiabetic oral agents or insulin for improved management of this chronic illness? Only time will answer this question for us," Alpert said in an editorial accompanying the article in the journal.

"We desperately need a great deal more basic and clinical research into the short- and long-term effects of marijuana in a variety of clinical settings such as cancer, diabetes and frailty of the elderly," Alpert wrote.

 

[accessndx]

Here's the full metal link to the actual peer reviewed journal article in text or .pdf format for those interested:
http://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(13)00200-3/fulltext

 

[yesum]

It takes twice as long for pot effects that are positive to be documented than the supposed bad effects.

Still a great deal of negative bias to the herb from people in power and this leads to biased 'scientific tests'.

I know, I sound like a truther or conspiracy nut who I detest. In this case I am neither.

 

[HempKat]

It takes twice as long for pot effects that are positive to be documented than the supposed bad effects.

Still a great deal of negative bias to the herb from people in power and this leads to biased 'scientific tests'.

I know, I sound like a truther or conspiracy nut who I detest. In this case I am neither.

Not really, I posted a thread with a link to a story about this same study. In that story was a link to another story about marijuana making people more prone to nicotine addiction. In that story it talked about the stereotypical belief of marijuana being a gateway drug that leads to harder drug use like heroine or cocain and it mentioned in the past several decades pretty much all those claims had been proven false and yet the notion of marijuana being a gateway drug is still thrown out there pretty regularly as if it were fact.

 

[PhenoMenal]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013...abetes-weird-science-recommends-the-munchies/

Marijuana may make you overeat, but it could be an effective diabetes treatment. Lighting up a bit of weed is often blamed for people going on uninhibited eating binges. So it's a bit of a surprise to find a study saying that regular marijuana use is associated with a slimmer waistline. Perhaps even more striking, however, is the affect it had on metabolism, where it drops resting blood glucose levels. These results are consistent with past indications that marijuana users have a lower incidence of diabetes. The one unusual thing here is that the new study found no indication of a dose response.

An early pregnancy test probably ended up killing lots of North American amphibians. We recently ran a story that suggested that international trade helped take a fungus that infects amphibians and turn it into a global killer. Now we have some idea of exactly what was being traded: raw materials for human pregnancy tests. The raw materials in question? Frogs. Xenopus laevis is commonly used in biology research because it's a prodigious producer of eggs that can then be used to study embryonic development. But, before we knew how to directly detect the proteins in human urine that signaled pregnancy, someone figured out a way to do so indirectly: they made the frogs ovulate.

So, we dragged in a bunch of frogs from Africa to use for pregnancy tests and, one way or another, they established themselves in the wilds of California. Now, a study of samples from frogs found decades ago in California and Africa show that these Xenopus are asymptomatic carriers of the fungus that's now killing other frog species around the globe. There's a very good chance that these hopping pregnancy tests managed to bring it to North America.

Living near a coal plant is bad, but it probably shouldn't be that bad. Here's a study that doesn't come from a happy place. And we mean that literally, as it comes from the Journal of Mood Disorders and its topic is suicide. Specifically, suicides in North Carolina (although that doesn't seem to be an especially unhappy place). After taking a variety of factors into account, the authors found that the rates in a given county went up if there were a coal-fired power plant in it. "The linear regression model suggests that for each additional coal plant in a given county, there would be an additional 1.96 suicide per 100,000 population," the authors conclude. No word on whether wind farms made people happier.

What could clear fire ants out of the US? Unfortunately, an ant that's even meaner. Fire ants are an invasive species in the warmer areas of the US, and we here at Weird Science are told by people who have experienced the invasion personally that their fearsome reputation is well deserved. So, normally, you'd expect said people to be happy to hear that the fire ants population seems to be going down. Unfortunately, it's going down because an even more deranged ant is driving it off—literally, a species called the crazy ant. On the plus side, these don't bite as viciously. On the downside, they manage to live in much higher densities, meaning they get everywhere once they get into someone's house.

Bonus Weird Science points both for the mere existence of a journal called Biological Invasions, where the paper will be published, and for the fact that entomologists were arguing over whether to call the species the "Raspberry crazy ant" or the "Tawny crazy ant." Until the paper is released, you can enjoy the press release.

Sports, where vagueness = profit. We typically think that carefully contemplating possible outcomes of an event is the best way to come to an accurate prediction of what's going to happen. But, when it comes from betting on sports, that may not be the case. Study participants were divided into two groups. One was asked to pick the winner of a sporting match while others were asked to pick the final score, which the researchers then converted into a prediction of the winning team. Oddly, there was a difference between the winner predicted by the two groups and the ones that didn't have to come up with a score ended up producing the more accurate prediction.

Normally, it's not clear whether these sorts of lab experiments translate to the real world. But in this case, the authors were able to turn to South Korea's largest sports-betting company, where they found exactly the same pattern holding.

 

[MildeStoner]

It takes twice as long for pot effects that are positive to be documented than the supposed bad effects.

This!