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Long-Term Marijuana Use Increases Risk Of Gum Disease, Nothing Else
Trending News: Smoking Weed For Years Has Just One Minor Health Setback
Why Is This Important?
Because smoking weed is about as bad as not flossing.
Long Story Short
The legalization camp just got some new arguments for their arsenal. A New Zealand study found that 20 years of smoking weed had no considerable negative health effects. The only pattern the researchers found was an increased risk for gum disease from all that smoking — something you can prevent by simply brushing and flossing.
Sorry those against legalizing marijuana, but while smoking weed and smoking tobacco may have the inhalation thing in common, there's little reason to compare the two health-wise.
The latest evidence to prove that smoking weed isn't remotely as harmful for you as other legal things such as smoking weed or drinking alcohol is a study out of New Zealand, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, which found that smoking weed over a long period of time has barely any negative health effects on the human body.
The researchers started tracking nearly 1,000 participants from birth to age 38 and checked in with them every few years to see what physical effects certain habits such as pot and tobacco smoking had on their health. After controlling for factors like tobacco use and socioeconomic factors, the only problem that could be found was an added risk of periodontal disease a.k.a. gum disease — what your dentist has been warning you about since you were a kid.
"In general, our findings showed that cannabis use over 20 years was unrelated to health problems in early midlife," the study found, as summarized by The Washington Post. "Across several domains of health (periodontal health, lung function, systemic inflammation, and metabolic health), clear evidence of an adverse association with cannabis use was apparent for only one domain, namely, periodontal health."
Still, gum disease ain't no joke. It was recently deemed to be a risk factor for heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, cancer and even Alzheimer’s disease. But you can pretty easily fend it off by keeping good oral hygiene.
So not only was smoking weed not bad for the participants' physical health, the people who smoked pot in the study were actually better off. While small the "findings showed that cannabis use was associated with slightly better metabolic health (smaller waist circumference, lower body mass index, better lipid profiles, and improved glucose control)," according to the study.
The researchers did want to be clear that smoking marijuana isn't completely not bad for you, though. These particular researchers have done studies before stating that long-term weed use can cause "psychotic illness, IQ decline and downward socioeconomic mobility." Or in other words, weed makes you stupid. But two subsequent studies have refuted those findings.
So yeah, anytime someone tells you smoking weed is as bad for you as smoking tobacco, just shake your head and walk away.
Own The Conversation
Ask The Big Question
But is marijuana still a "gateway drug?"
Disrupt Your Feed
Instead of throwing pot smokers in jail, maybe we should be tossing in tobacco users?
Drop This Fact
No one has ever died from a marijuana overdose.