In a recent clinical study doctors have found that patients of theirs co-infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C (HCV) were less likely to develop diabetes and insulin resistance if they smoked pot.
You can get certain forms of hepatitis in the same way as HIV, and about 80% of intravenous drug users with HIV also have HCV. Both diseases put the person at risk for further complications in the liver, as well as diabetes.
In this large-scale study done by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 200 collaborators looked at 703 patients, collecting data over 60 months for each patient. Doctors assessed their level of insulin resistance and took behavioral data, including cannabis use.
Adjusting for all the variables they could, they found that cannabis users with HIV-HCV were around 2.77 times less likely to develop insulin resistance. While the study focused on people co-infected with those two illnesses, the study concluded saying “benefits of cannabis-based pharmacotherapies for patients concerned with increased risk of IR and diabetes need to be evaluated.”
A future for medical marijuana as a preventative medicine lies ahead to help those at risk of developing diabetes and insulin resistance.
