14 DAY TRIAL // Having taken the time to look into the overall wellbeing of several thousand volunteers, researcher Omayma Alshaarawy with the Michigan State University in the US and colleagues found evidence that marijuana can prove beneficial to one's health.
As detailed in a report published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, what these scientists found is that people who smoke marijuana on a regular basis are likely to have lower levels of inflammation in their body.
This is important because, as shown by previous investigations, high levels of inflammation in the body go hand in hand with an increased risk of heart disease. Hence, it can be argued that marijuana consumption can help lower heart disease risk.
What this investigation entailed
In their paper in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, specialist Omayma Alshaarawy and fellow researchers explain that, as part of their investigation, they looked at the levels of inflammation in the bodies of well over 9,000 individuals.
What's more, the researchers asked these volunteers to complete a questionnaire and collected information concerning their history of marijuana use. The data concerning the study participants' inflammation levels and their smoking habits were then compiled and analyzed.
Live Science tells us that, of the over 9,000 people included in this investigation, 40% told the researchers that they had never smoked marijuana and 48% admitted to having experimented with the drug at some point in their life, but not over the past 30 days.
The remaining 12% confessed to having smoked marijuana not long before the debut of the investigation. In fact, some of them even admitted to having consumed this drug sometime during the month before the onset of the study, Omayma Alshaarawy and colleagues detail.
The outcome of this research project
It was discovered that the study participants who smoked marijuana at some point in their life, i.e. the 48% group, had lower levels of a marker of inflammation known as the C-reactive protein than folks who never experimented with the drug.
What's interesting is that, contrary to what some might assume, the 12% group was found to have the same levels of the C-reactive protein in their bodies as the 40% group. Otherwise put, their recent use of marijuana could not be linked to an improvement in the levels of inflammation in their body.
In light of these findings, it might be argued that, through certain mechanisms, marijuana use might help lower the risk to develop heart disease. Still, the fact remains that researchers are yet to zoom in on these mechanisms and thoroughly explain them.
“CRP [C-reactive protein] is a marker of inflammation and thus constitutes a cardiovascular risk factor. This implies that lower CRP levels should [theoretically] be linked to a lower risk of heart problems,” says specialist Émilie Jouanjus with Toulouse University Hospital, who was not involved in the study.
Further research is needed
It's important to note that, although this one investigation suggests that marijuana consumption can prove beneficial, there are plenty of other studies that indicate otherwise. Thus, other investigations have found evidence that this drug can cause serious heart trouble.
Hence, people should just keep away from it. Hopefully, further studies will help shed new light on how smoking marijuana can influence a person's overall wellbeing.
