Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A cross-sectional study
Authors
Adejumo, AdeyinkaAlliu, Samson
Ajayi, Tokunbo Opeyemi
Adejumo, Kelechi Lauretta
Adegbala, Oluwole Muyiwa
Onyeakusi, Nnaemeka Egbuna
Akinjero, Akintunde Micheal
Durojaiye, Modupeoluwa
Bukong, Terence N.
UMass Chan Affiliations
Department of Medicine, Division of GastroenterologyDocument Type
Journal ArticlePublication Date
2017-04-25Keywords
cannabisnon-alcoholic fatty liver disease
NAFLD
Digestive System Diseases
Gastroenterology
Medical Physiology
Substance Abuse and Addiction
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) in humans and mouse disease models. Obesity and DM are a well-established independent risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most prevalent liver disease globally. The effects of cannabis use on NAFLD prevalence in humans remains ill-defined. Our objective is to determine the relationship between cannabis use and the prevalence of NAFLD in humans. We conducted a population-based case-control study of 5,950,391 patients using the 2014 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Nationwide Inpatient Survey (NIS) discharge records of patients 18 years and older. After identifying patients with NAFLD (1% of all patients), we next identified three exposure groups: non-cannabis users (98.04%), non-dependent cannabis users (1.74%), and dependent cannabis users (0.22%). We adjusted for potential demographics and patient related confounders and used multivariate logistic regression (SAS 9.4) to determine the odds of developing NAFLD with respects to cannabis use. Our findings revealed that cannabis users (dependent and non-dependent) showed significantly lower NAFLD prevalence compared to non-users (AOR: 0.82[0.76-0.88]; p<0.0001). The prevalence of NAFLD was 15% lower in non-dependent users (AOR: 0.85[0.79-0.92]; p<0.0001) and 52% lower in dependent users (AOR: 0.49[0.36-0.65]; p<0.0001). Among cannabis users, dependent patients had 43% significantly lower prevalence of NAFLD compared to non-dependent patients (AOR: 0.57[0.42-0.77]; p<0.0001). Our observations suggest that cannabis use is associated with lower prevalence of NAFLD in patients. These novel findings suggest additional molecular mechanistic studies to explore the potential role of cannabis use in NAFLD development.Source
PLoS One. 2017 Apr 25;12(4):e0176416. eCollection 2017. Link to article on publisher's siteDOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0176416Permanent Link to this Item
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14038/40250PubMed ID
28441459Related Resources
Link to Article in PubMedRights
Copyright © 2017 Adejumo et al.Distribution License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pone.0176416