Marijuana Diabetes: Pot Smokers Have Lower Diabetes Risk; Are Pot Smokers Skinnier?

Marijuana lovers can finally argue that smoking pot has health benefits, as new studies have discovered.

The Atlantic recently reported a study that found that people who smoke pot are skinnier. The researchers at the University of Nebraska, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center analyzed data to find that current pot smokers had a smaller waist circumference than those who had never used marijuana. While this may seem counterintuitive -- pot smokers reportedly consume an extra 600 calories a day due to having "the munchies" -- the proof lies in the numbers. And yes, the study took into account the extraneous variables such as age, sex, tobacco, alcohol use and physical activity levels.

Before you decide to get some marijuana to cure your weight problems, know that there's more to these studies than what meets the eyes and the findings of these studies do not imply that you should smoke pot to lose weight.

"This is an interesting, provocative, and counterintuitive finding. Marijuana has been found in other studies to increase caloric intake, but this one claims it correlates with weight loss and healthier measures of sugar metabolism," shares Dr. Henry David Abraham, a lecturer at Tufts University School of Medicine, to Latin Times. "So should doctors start telling their obese patients to start smoking weed for their health? I don't think so. It's too early for such a radical idea."

But that's not the only benefit the scientists found, as there is a correlation between Type 2 diabetes and marijuana. One of the most common risk factors for diabetes is insulin resistance and the researchers found that the active ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), may help the body take in insulin. The study, administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published in the latest issue of "The American Journal of Medicine," found that marijuana users had 16 percent lower fasting insulin levels and 17 percent lower insulin-resistance levels. That said, only current smokers experienced the positive effects, implying that the resistance occurred after immediate use.

"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," said Dr. Joseph Alpert, professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, in an editorial that accompanied the article in the journal, according to FOX News. "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.

Additionally, the study found that current marijuana users had higher levels of HDL (the "good cholesterol").

"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, reports Live Science.

Last year, a British study from the University of Reading found that marijuana can help those suffering from epilepsy -- a condition that afflicts one percent of the world -- as THC has anti-convulsant properties. The researchers determined that it could potentially lead to an effective treatment with no side effects. Other studies have found that marijuana can help cure cancer, diarrhea, bipolar disorder, control seizures, cure Crohn's and Multiple sclerosis.

Dr. Abraham accurately points out that these studies are not a scientific experiment, but rather a cross-sectional study.

"That means it looked at a group of people at one point in time. It's terribly hard to control for bias in such studies," reveals Dr. Abraham. "For example, the correlation between weed and and smaller waistlines may be do to the fact that twice as many in the weed group smoked cigarettes than in the abstainers. What happens when you quit cigarettes? People gain weight!"

"Smoking cigarettes does the opposite," adds Dr. Abraham. "And what about a study that asks people if they've broken the law? Do you really believe that 100% of the weed users are going to cop to it in "a private room?" No, they will not. This bias of likely false reporting also is likely to weaken the claim. So what should we do about our expanding waistlines? Eat less, exercise more, and use common sense that there is no easy and fun way to take care of ourselves."