Does cannabis increase the risk of diabetes?

Spektrum der Wissenschaft

20.9.2025

Translation: machine translated

How the long-term use of cannabis affects health is only partially understood. According to a recent study, it could disrupt the sugar metabolism.

Cannabis use is associated with an almost fourfold increase in the risk of developing diabetes. This is confirmed by an analysis of medical data from more than four million adults. A research group led by Ibrahim Kamel from the Boston Medical Center (Massachusetts) will present the results at this year's annual conference of the diabetes association «European Association for the Study of Diabetes» (EASD) in Vienna.

Cannabis use is increasing worldwide. Currently, an estimated 250 million people consume such drugs, which is around three per cent of the world's population. The long-term health effects are largely unclear. What is certain is that cannabis use can lead to cardiovascular problems, impair brain performance and exacerbate mental illness.

Kamel and his team analysed electronic health records from 54 healthcare facilities in the USA and Europe. They had access to the data of around 100,000 outpatients who had received medical diagnoses related to cannabis use. Among other things, addiction, intoxication and withdrawal symptoms were identified. The team compared this data over a five-year period with that of 4.2 million people who had not received any drug-related diagnoses. The experts made sure that influencing variables such as age, gender and previous illnesses in the respective comparison groups corresponded to each other.

Taking into account blood lipid and blood pressure levels, cocaine and alcohol consumption, any cardiovascular problems and other risk factors, the analysis revealed that new-onset type 2 diabetes occurred about four times as often in cannabis users as in people who lived drug-free. In the cannabis group, 2.2 per cent of people were affected by such metabolic disorders, compared to only 0.6 per cent in the comparison group. The experts suspect that this effect has to do with unhealthy eating habits when using cannabis or an endocrine (glandular cell-influencing) effect of the drug. However, they emphasise that their study does not allow any conclusions to be drawn about cause-and-effect relationships.

«As cannabis becomes more widely available, socially accepted and legalised in many places, it seems important to understand its potential health risks», Kamel said in a press release. It may be advisable to monitor metabolism more closely with long-term cannabis use than with a drug-free lifestyle,

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