Does smoking weed make a lung condition called chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) worse? It’s a question that’s puzzled many. Today, we take a close look at a new study trying to answer that.
COPD: What’s That?
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) makes it hard for people to breathe and it often gets worse over time. Up to now, we weren’t sure if smoking weed could speed up this process. That’s what this study aimed to find out.
How Did They Do the Study?
Researchers took a group of people who had smoked tobacco at some point in their lives. They split them up into three smaller groups: those who currently smoke weed, those who used to, and those who never did. They kept an eye on these folks for over a year.
What Were They Looking For?
The scientists used some fancy math models to check for changes in breathing tests, symptoms, overall health, and lung scans. They also looked at rates of severe flare-ups of the disease. They adjusted for things like age, gender, race, how much tobacco the person smoked, and their starting lung function.
What Did They Find?
Surprisingly, they didn’t see any big differences between the three groups. People who smoked weed – whether a lot or a little, whether now or in the past – didn’t seem to have COPD get worse any faster than those who never smoked weed.
So, What’s the Bottom Line?
This study suggests that smoking weed doesn’t seem to make COPD get worse. But there’s a catch – we need more studies to understand the long-term effects of smoking weed on this lung disease.
