As marijuana loses much of its stigma and laws around its use relax, Americans are increasingly consuming it medically and recreationally.
Americans with diabetes are no exception, a new study finds.
The number of adults with diabetes who said that they’d used cannabis at least once over the past month jumped by a third between 2021 and 2022, the new report found.
This surge in use means that “clinicians must discuss with their patients with diabetes the potential harms of cannabis use on diabetes-related outcomes,” even as the merits of marijuana for diabetes care remain unclear, wrote a team from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
The findings were published July 22 in the journal Diabetes Care.
The new study was led by Dr. Benjamin Han, associate chief of research in the Division of Geriatrics, Gerontology and Palliative Care at UCSD.
His team looked at federal data from the 2021-2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
During that time, about 9% of adults with diabetes said they’d used cannabis at least once over the prior month, and the rate rose from 7.7% in 2021 to 10.3% in 2022, a 33.7% rise.
Users tended to be younger: “Nearly half [48.9%] of the people with diabetes who used cannabis were under age 50,” the team noted.
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