Encomium
Most marijuana users have abnormal low blood flow in every part of the brain as revealed by a new research. Result from 1,000 scans of cannabis users found that their brain has widespread of restrictions or build-ups of blood flow.
In the United States, the use of marijuana is rapidly being legalized for recreation and medical, even as the legalization is moving faster than research, as warned by Dr. Vivek Gupta, the White House’s surgeon general.
A submission from researchers at Amen Clinics shows that of 26,268 patients who went through single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT – a sophisticated imaging study that evaluates blood flow and activity patterns while undergoing concentration tests) in the US between 1995 and 2015, 1,000 of them were marijuana users. When compared with brain scan of 100 healthy control patients, the researchers recorded a depressing difference.
Blood flow in every marijuana users are significantly low in the right hippocampus judging against the control patients.
Dr. Elisabeth Jorandby stated that: “As a physician who routinely sees marijuana users, what struck me was not only the global reduction in blood flow in the marijuana users’ brains, but that the hippocampus was the most affected region due to its role in memory and Alzheimer’s disease. Our research has proven that marijuana users have lower cerebral blood flow than non-users.
“Second, the most predictive region separating these two groups is low blood flow in the hippocampus on concentration brain SPECT imaging. This work suggests that marijuana use has damaging influences in the brain – particularly regions important in memory and learning and known to be affected by Alzheimer’s.”
According to Dr. George Perry, the editor in chief of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease: “To open use of marijuana, through legalization, will reveal the wide range of marijuana’s benefits and threats to human health. This study indicates troubling effects on the hippocampus that may be the harbingers of brain damage.”
