Marijuana And Diabetes: Smoking May Raise Blood Sugar Levels

Researchers have found that smoking marijuana may raise an individual's risk of developing prediabetes, even to the point where they could develop type 2 diabetes.

While marijuana use in the study was not linked to an increased risk of having type 2 diabetes, researchers found that people who used large amounts of marijuana during young adulthood were 40 percent more likely to develop prediabetes as middle-age adults than those who had never tried the drug before. The findings are published today (Sept. 13) in the journal Diabetologica.

"We felt we could address the potential limitations of previous research and add new information to our understanding of the relationship between marijuana use and subsequent metabolic health," Mike Bancks (University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis, MN, said in a news release. 

However, the study results contradict previous findings that using marijuana may reduce the risk of developing diabetes, according to researchers. "It's unclear how marijuana use could place an individual at increased risk for prediabetes, yet not diabetes," they noted. 

The researchers offered several reasons to explain this observation. For instance, it may be possible that people who were more likely to develop diabetic conditions were left out of the study. In order to be included, people had to be free of diabetes at the start of the follow-up period. It could also be that marijuana may have a larger impact on blood sugar levels in the prediabetes range than the diabetes range, according to researchers.

However, more research will be needed in order to determine a possible link, looking at different groups of people, how marijuana is consumed and the amount being consumed, as well.

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