Nov 20, 2015 11:30 AM EST
Marijuana Benefits: Smoking Pot Lowers Risks For Developing Metabolic Syndrome

Pot smokers are stereotyped as lazy people who like to sit around, chill all day and eat "munchies". Although this sedentary lifestyle could possibly be subjected to developing unhealthy problems such as metabolic syndrome, a new study explains otherwise.

Medical Daily reports a research published in The American Journal of Medicine shows those who smoke weed are about 50% less-likely to develop metabolic syndrome than non-weed smokers. Metabolic syndrome includes risk factors such as unhealthy cholesterol levels, abdominal fats, high blood pressure and high blood sugar which increase risks for heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

For the study, researchers at University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine identified the link between metabolic syndrome and the use of marijuana through a 2005-2010 data collected by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.

They classified nearly 8,500 participants with ages 20 to 59 as having metabolic syndrome by considering three or more of these symptoms: high fasting glucose levels, high systolic or diastolic blood pressure, low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and increased waist circumference. The researchers then grouped the participants in three categories: current pot-smokers, former pot-smokers and non-weed smokers.

Results show that 19.5% of non-weed smokers and 17.5% of former pot-smokers were positive in having metabolic syndrome. Meanwhile, those who currently smoke weed had the lowest percentage of having metabolic syndrome at 13.8%.

Cannabis users were also found to have significantly lower fasting glucose levels and waist circumference as compared to those who never smoked pot.

"Among emerging adults, current marijuana users were 54 percent less likely than never users to present with metabolic syndrome," the researchers concluded. "These findings have important implications for the nation as marijuana use becomes more accepted and we simultaneously face multiple epidemics of obesity, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes."

These findings are addition to the growing medical benefits of Cannabis discovered.

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