Can Marijuana Help With Diabetes? Research Conflicting

Earlier this year, the journal Obesity

showing that marijuana users typically had a lower body mass index than those that refrain from using the drug. The figures supported claims that cannabis could be an effective treatment for sufferers of diabetes and suggested that GW Pharmaceuticals'

efforts to develop a Type 2 diabetes drug derived from cannabinoids could become a major success. However, new data shows that marijuana use could also have a negative impact on metabolic health, something that appears to contradict the previous studies.

The Journal Diabetologia

which showed that people who used large quantities of marijuana when they were young were 40 percent more likely to develop prediabetes in middle age. The findings suggested that long-term marijuana use could increase the danger of creating excessive blood sugar, a condition that often leads to diabetes. However, the study also found that marijuana use had no link to likeliness of developing type 2 diabetes.

While the results of earlier studies appear to contradict that of the study from Diabetologia, some say the findings simply prove that more research is needed to determine how marijuana affects peoples' health. The Diabetologia study looked into how marijuana use affects people later in life, while earlier studies were assessing marijuana as a treatment for those who already have the disease. As the cannabis industry is only in its infancy, much more detailed research is necessary to determine how the drug affects the human body.