Marijuana: The Next Diabetes Drug

When I saw on CNN the story represented in the title, from TIME magazine (5-23-2013), it really rocked me.

I knew marijuana was good for about 40 disparate diseases but this was a real shock. The story originated in the American Journal of Medicine (AJM), by Dr. Murray Mittleman, of Harvard Medical School, and quotes three prior studies reporting almost the same.

To quote in the first paragraph of the article, “Toking up may help marijuana users to stay slim and lower their risk of developing diabetes, according to the latest study which suggests that cannabis compounds may help in controlling blood sugar levels.”

To quote the AJM article, “Their fasting insulin levels were lower, and they appeared to be less resistant to the insulin produced by their own body to maintain a normal blood sugar level.”

They also had higher high-density lipoprotein (HDL, also known as “good cholesterol”) and slimmer waistlines. This article on the computer had 852 comments.

Another article quoted by the AJM article was the British Medical Journal (BMJ) article, “Cannabis use was associated with decreased prevalence of Diabetes.” (12-20-2012) In that marijuana users had a lower prevalence of Type II Diabetes, and a lower risk of contracting it. Another article in the NORML library and Wikipedia states that CBD (Cannabidiol) halts the development of Type I Diabetes in laboratory mice.

One comment on this article states that marijuana alleviates her pain (neuropathy). Another statement by a Diabetes patient was “I started smoking marijuana to help my pain, and it cured my Diabetes.”

This gets us to the subtitle, Is marijuana good for Diabetes neuropathy pain? In an article titled, Smoked Medical Cannabis May Be Beneficial as Treatment for Chronic Neuropathic Pain, from Canadian Medical Association Journal, McGill University Health Center in Montreal, Canada. Patients were given 25mg of inhaled 10% THC three times a day by pipe, over five days. It provided modest pain relief in chronic neuropathic pain patients.

These two newly reported studies show again that marijuana as medicine provides unlimited help for a wide variety of diseases.

Marijuana: The Next Diabetes Drug

Article by Dr. Phil Leveque, Professor of Pharmacology Salem-News.com

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