HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 19, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Marijuana may be bad to the bone, a new Scottish study suggests.
People who are very heavy users of pot have more than twice the risk of suffering a broken bone compared to people who only smoke tobacco cigarettes, the study found.
Heavy pot users also had lower bone density compared to cigarette smokers, the researchers said.
“The take-home point for patients is relatively clear: heavy marijuana use does not promote bone health,” said Dr. Matthew Hepinstall. He’s an orthopaedic surgeon at the Lenox Hill Hospital Center for Joint Preservation and Reconstruction in New York City.
Due to the study’s design, the researchers said, they could not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between pot smoking and bone density. However, they did take into account a number of other factors that could affect bone health, such as age, gender, weight, physical activity levels, calcium intake and alcohol consumption.
The study included 170 regular marijuana users and a control group of 114 cigarette smokers. The average age of heavy pot users was 40 years old. The average age of the cigarette smokers was 49.
From the outset, the researchers defined heavy marijuana users as those who reported smoking cannabis on at least 5,000 occasions in their lifetime. However, the average heavy cannabis user in the study reported using the drug more than 47,000 times, the researchers noted.
For someone who has used marijuana daily for 25 years, that means smoking pot on average five times a day.
The research team used a specialized X-ray technique to measure bone density. The study authors also reviewed the participants’ medical histories for past fractures as well as other factors that required consideration.
“Our research has shown that heavy users of cannabis have quite a large reduction in bone density compared with non-users, and there is a real concern that this may put them at increased risk of developing osteoporosis and fractures later in life,” said lead researcher Stuart Ralston. He’s a professor with the University of Edinburgh’s Center for Genomic and Experimental Medicine.
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