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When you light up or down an edible<\/a>, you may be lowering your risk of cognitive decline, according to a new study comparing recreational cannabis users to nonusers. As marijuana isn\u2019t without its health harms<\/a>, these findings came as a surprise even to the scientists behind the study.<\/p>\n Researchers at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University<\/a> found that nonmedical cannabis use\u2014regardless of how or how often it was consumed\u2014lowered a person\u2019s odds of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) by 96%. The results were published in February in the journal Current Alzheimer Research<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI was expecting cannabis to be linked to an increased risk for cognitive decline, because that\u2019s pretty much what\u2019s consistent in previous research<\/a>,\u201d study coauthor Roger Wong, Ph.D.<\/a>, an assistant professor of public health and preventive medicine at the university\u2019s Norton College of Medicine<\/a>, tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI was stunned by the opposite finding.\u201d<\/p>\n Dual use of cannabis, for both medical and nonmedical purposes, as well as medical use alone also correlated to decreased risk of SCD, the self-reported worsening or increased frequency of confusion or memory loss. However, those associations weren\u2019t statistically significant.<\/p>\n Previous research suggests<\/a> people with SCD are 2.5 times more likely to develop dementia<\/a> and 1.8 times more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment<\/a>. About one in nine U.S. adults ages 45 and older experience SCD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have a way to prevent dementia right now,\u201d Wong says. \u201cBut if we can prevent subjective cognitive decline at the very beginning and track it, that\u2019ll hopefully fix some of the issues that we\u2019re having right now with dementia later in life.\u201d<\/p>\n Wong and public health graduate student Zhi Chen<\/a> used the CDC\u2019s 2021 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)<\/a> to study nearly 4,800 U.S. adults 45 and older. To indicate SCD, the comprehensive health survey included the question, \u201cDuring the past 12 months, have you experienced confusion or memory loss that is happening more often or is getting worse?\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of respondents\u2019 cannabis use, Wong and Chen examined:<\/p>\n Researchers weighted the sample size so that the nearly 4,800 respondents represented more than 563,000 people. About 53% were women, 46% were Asian, and 16% were 60\u201364 years old, a larger proportion than any other age group. A third of respondents ranked their health \u201cvery good.\u201d Of the 8% who used cannabis, a 3% plurality did so for medical purposes. Smoking was by far the most common consumption method and, on average, respondents had used cannabis 1.4 of the previous 30 days.<\/p>\n Among cannabis users with SCD, cognitive decline was most common<\/a> in people who used cannabis for medical reasons, followed by dual and recreational users. Further data analysis showed a statistically significant association between nonmedical use and 96% decreased odds of SCD.<\/p>\nSCD most common among medical cannabis users<\/h2>\n
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