HEALTH: Smoking too much pot linked to brittle bones and low weight

Your bones are going to pot.

Stoners who regularly smoke “large amounts of cannabis” are more prone to fractures and brittle bones, according to a new University of Edinburgh study.

And despite the popular perception that ganja gives you the munchies, man, researchers found that heavy cannabis users are thinner and have lower BMIs than non-users — perhaps because large doses of dope over long periods can actually reduce appetite.

Scientists compared 170 regular weed enthusiasts with 114 non-smokers, and X-rayed everyone using a specialized DEXA scan to measure bone density. They found the bones of heavy tokers — defined as smoking pot 5,000 times in a lifetime, but who on average had actually lit up more than 47,000 times in this study — were 5% less dense than the bones of cigarette smokers who don’t use weed. The potheads also suffered more frequent fractures.

 

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But moderate marijuana users — who on average took the drug about 1,000 times — showed no difference from their more straight-edge counterparts.

The study, funded by Arthritis Research UK, was published in the American Journal of Medicine.

”We have known for a while that the components of cannabis can affect bone cell function, but we had no idea up until now of what this might mean to people who use cannabis on a regular basis,” wrote lead researcher Professor Stuart Ralston.

“Our research has shown that heavy users of cannabis have quite a large reduction in bone density compared with non-users,” he warned, “and there is a real concern that this may put them at an increased risk of developing osteoporosis and fractures later in life.”