Cannabis use associated with quadrupled risk of developing type 2 diabetes
46 comments
·September 14, 2025null
bb88
> The researchers found that new cases of diabetes were significantly higher in the cannabis group (1,937; 2.2%) compared to the healthy group (518; 0.6%).
We know there's a path from obesity to diabetes. I think it would be interesting to see if there's a path from cannabis to obesity.
klipt
> a path from cannabis to obesity
I believe the technical term is "the munchies"
bb88
You would think that's the mechanism, but there seems to be evidence that points to lower BMI with cannabis use.
Mouse study: https://medschool.uci.edu/news/new-research-may-explain-why-...
Human study: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/can.2024.0069
Many people might have removed alcohol intake with cannabis use, to reduce overall caloric intake.
Sparkle-san
I wonder if this is skewed by the states where marijuana was legal/more accessible during that time window. Colorado was the first state to legalize it and is also the state with the lowest BMI.
blackjack_
I don't know why this isn't talked about that often, but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat. Which probably is part of the thing that leads to reduced BMI.
tapoxi
Speaking from personal experience I went from a BMI of 24 (healthy) to a BMI of 31 (obese) because of daily cannabis use that gave me insane munchies.
This may be genetic, I had friends that didn't get them nearly as badly as I did.
(I have since quit weed and lost the weight.)
caboteria
Also "couch lock", i.e., reduced physical activity.
dyauspitr
There’s also something to cannabis potentially messing with your metabolism because anecdotally potheads usually aren’t particularly fat.
sonicggg
Part of research work is removing extraneous variables.
sweatypants
without reading this study in depth my immediate thoughts are: - cannabis is not the direct link with diabetes - cannabis urges munchies > overeating - overeating causes obesity - obesity causes diabetes
lr4444lr
I occasionally use CBN for sleep, never THC, so maybe it's different, but I quickly develop a tolerance, like within a week of daily use and have to cease for many days or a few weeks to get any further benefit at all.
As I read, the endocannabinoid system in the brain is pretty homeostasic.
Does something similar happen with cannabis munchies subsiding to people who ingest THC or whole leaf products daily?
giraffe_lady
Anecdotally yes. I'm a very occasional user now and get insane munchies but when I was using it differently I felt that tolerance built quickly and I stopped having munchies once it did. Not even quite daily use either like 3-4/week. Another comment elsewhere in here describes the same experience.
jaco6
[dead]
lvl155
Anything in excess is bad for you. Even water.
leoh
very confusing results around this the last few years
https://www.veriheal.com/blog/study-women-who-consume-a-lot-...
there needs to be a paper that reconciles conflicting findings.
pama
Is there a link somewhere to the actual scientific contribution? (Or at leadt an abstract?)
Havoc
Everything fun is always bad :(
onemoresoop
I wonder if this is connected to the appetite the cannabis consumption brings about. I personally experienced appetite from consuming it but learned that not acting on it is equally pleasant. Maybe I have more self control or something...
yowlingcat
This is not a great "study" if you can call it that. Let me be specific by pointing a passage that's doing a lot of the heavy lifting:
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After controlling HDL and LDL cholesterol, uncontrolled high blood pressure, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, cocaine use, alcohol use and several other lifestyle risk factors, the researchers found that new cases of diabetes were significantly higher in the cannabis group (1,937; 2.2%) compared to the healthy group (518; 0.6%), with statistical analysis showing cannabis users at nearly four times the risk of developing diabetes compared to non-users.
```
Note "nearly four times the risk of developing diabetes" -- this feels like a dangerous exaggeration of "four times the correlation of having developed diabetes." No controls for diet, exercise, etc. In comparison to a gold standard clinical trial this is about as far as you can go on the other end.
That's not to say that I think that a prospective link doesn't merit deeper research -- far from it. In fact, Novo Nordisk has an anti-obesity drug in phase 2a trials, monlunabant [1], that serves as a CB1 (cannabinoid receptor 1) inverse agonist which has a mechanism of action inverse to THC. The clinical trials are showing that it creates modest weight loss, so it seems that there's likely something to how that receptor is activated that could cause weight gain. What's not clear to me is whether all the other receptors that THC activates create a compound effect at a population health level that leads to net weight gain and the development of diabetes, the inverse, or non-correlated outcomes, and whether those occur across the board or differentially based on genetic makeup.
homeonthemtn
Wonder if cannabis triggers blood sugar level changes which causes the munchies.
I have funky blood sugar issues, and I can certainly see the overlap in how the cravings feel but never made the connection until now. Very interesting.
AngryData
There does seem to be an effect on blood sugar levels, but apparently not in a simple way because studies struggle to get consistent results. It seems like it lowers it a little bit, atleast at first, but many people spend far more time with excess sugar levels, possibly due to eating in response.
Anecdotally it always seemed to me that it didn't make you that hungry straight out, but it did depress the feeling of satiation after eating so it is much easier to binge on food once you start eating something.
null
Fade_Dance
Seems to me that that would have been known/measured by now if it was the case. Fairly easy to measure.