 Marijuana and Blood Sugar
The question here is "Can smoking pot help with diabetes?"
One would ask themselves - What is Diabetes and how does Blood Sugar enter into it?
Diabetes: Insulin is excreted from the beta islet cells of the pancreas. Insulin, a natural body chemical, floods the body after a sugar-rich meal and causes various cell types to dramatically increase their uptake of glucose, a common sugar. The effect of insulin is to reduce the levels of glucose in the bloodstream. Diabetes can result from the body’s inability to produce sufficient quantities of insulin or from an inability to respond properly to the insulin that is produced. In either case, many of the clinical effects of diabetes stem from the deleterious effects of high blood sugar.
There is some anecdotal evidence that cannabis lowers blood sugar. AIDS and cancer patients, among other cannabis users, often report an increase in appetite after consuming cannabis, and a few reports indicate that smoking cannabis can lower blood sugar in diabetics.
A study (Tracy Blevins phd) was undertaken to determine whether this effect can be detected using an easily available over the counter blood glucose testing kit.
She tested a morbidly obese man who had a non-healing wound on his lower leg and was experiencing confusion and sleepiness after large meals. He suspected diabetes as the culprit, and, since smoking a large cannabis cigarette after large meals seemed to alleviate some of his symptoms, his blood sugar was tested before, immediately after and multiple times during the hour following a large meal rich in protein, fats and both complex and simple carbohydrates.
The results were dramatic and raised some interesting research questions. Before and immediately after the meal, the patient’s blood sugar was in the normal range, but within a few minutes increased by 80 mg/dl and remained at this high level for almost an hour. Then he smoked a 1 gram cannabis cigarette, and his blood sugar levels fell by 40 points almost instantly. This represents a full 50% of the abnormal increase in blood sugar.
The drop of blood which was taken at the exact moment when he was self reporting a ‘high’ were the lowest in blood sugar, a good indication that the blood sugar lowering was caused by the ingestion of cannabis. Curiously, after a few minutes, his blood sugar started to increase again. It might be that smoking cannabis helped to reduce his blood sugar, but only transiently. Would a longer acting cannabinoid suppress blood sugar levels more efficiently?
Further studies are necessary to confirm this effect and to determine the parameters of the effect: the amount of cannabis needed, the time course of the effect, and also whether different types of cannabis show more or less blood sugar lowering. Also, in another non-diabetic patient, blood sugar was decreased by 11%, pointing to the possibility that cannabis can lower blood sugar in a non-disease state.
Could it be that we have finally discovered the biological mechanism of “the munchies”?
I don't think so and I wouldn't take THC instead of my prescribed meds, but a test like the one above with strict guidelines would be indicated. Who knows perhaps you can get off the needle!! If you are able to test yourself I'd be interested in knowing the results.
To have your test results included, send your email address and your results to crackwalker@crackwalker.ca and I'll post the results here on this website. Please use the following guidelines when testing yourself. Rate your pot either:
A+ - Fuck'n eh!
B+ - Really good
C+ - Okay
If you know indica from sativa this would help but is not necessary for our little test. If we get fantastic results we'll refine our testing procedures to include strains and varieties. Shitty pot not rated... get some f'n good stuff, dudes and dudettes!!
Guidelines:
- Get up at the same time everyday. Test your blood sugar and record the time and the results. Take your prescribed meds at the same time each morning.
- Eat the same breakfast at the same time everyday. Drink the same drink everyday. If you have a regular coffee after breakfast, stick to it, just do the same thing everyday. After eating wait 20 mins and test your blood sugar. Record the time and the results again.
- Have a toke. Measure your tokes. Make sure each dose is the same as the last one. Make sure you take all your tokes from the same batch of weed. Wait 15 mins after your toke and take your blood sugar again. Record the time and the results again.
- Check your blood sugar every hour for 3 hours. Record the time and the results each time.
- Finish the rest of the day as you normally would.
Do this for three days in a row. You WILL be very pinpricked. Sorry I mean you no pain. :) Once you have all your test data send it to me VIA email and I'll publish my findings here on this site.
Send your test data to: crackwalker@crackwalker.ca
Podolsky (1971) found that although fasting blood glucose was unchanged by smoking marihuana, higher 30 and 60 minute glucose levels were noted after a standard dose of glucose. No corresponding alteration in insulin or growth hormone levels was demonstrated.
Hollister and Gillespie (1970) found an increased total food intake when the drug was administered after breakfast but not after an overnight fast. Half the subjects reported subjective increased hunger. Subjects' free fatty acid levels and blood glucose remained unchanged while the placebo controls' free fatty acid values decreased. Another study suggested increased appetite and food intake but was without adequate controls (Personal Communication, 1970).
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