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Cannabis usage in older adults linked to larger brain, better cognitive function
- pixelpoet 9mo agoInteresting article, but immediately ran into one of my pet peeves: > The work is published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. "Alcohol and drugs" is like saying "beef and meat".
- hippo22 9mo agoWhen you hear someone say “I do drugs” do you imagine them sitting at a bar to have a drink? Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
- superkuh 9mo agoWe know. But it's a problem because alcohol is one of the most dangerous and damaging drugs. It's basically just society grandfathering it in and all of us living in a state of cognitive dissonance. re: the article itself, they concentrate only on brain regions which have high density of CB1 expression and that's reasonable. But CB1 is not the only CNS cannabinoid receptor (CB2 mostly expressed peripherally). There's also GPR55 which is activated by cannabinoids like THC. A little issue which could be addressed in future work.
- kevin_thibedeau 9mo agoAlcohol can be consumed without intoxication. Nobody smokes to not get high.
- master-lincoln 9mo agoTell that to all CBD users and people who use Marijuana to reduce anxieties or spasticity. Also who drinks alcohol without wanting at least some of the intoxication effects?
- hackingonempty 9mo agoI've gone to numerous tasting events where I spit out all of the wine. There may be hundreds of bottles being poured at a trade show and you can't really taste more than a handful if you are swallowing.
- BrandoElFollito 9mo agoTrue, but you end up high anyway. You would not drive in France for instance, because of the residual alcohol
- nutjob2 9mo agoPatently false on both counts. There is always some level of intoxication and many people use pot to manage anxiety, pain, nausea and lack of appetite, while avoiding the high.
- buellerbueller 9mo agoWisdom is knowing when not to put a tomato in a fruit salad. https://cheflindseyfarr.com/marinated-tomato-stone-fruit-salad/ https://cheflindseyfarr.com/marinated-tomato-stone-fruit-sal... (I second the recommendation of adding burrata.)
- ssl-3 9mo agoWhen I hear someone say "I do drugs," first I imagine that they're a fucking narcotics agent, and then I end the conversation.
- kannanvijayan 9mo agoKnowledge is being aware of the analogy of tomatoes not being treated like fruits even though they technically are. Wisdom is understanding that if there was legislation on the matter, and people who ate, produced, or sold non-tomato fruits were hunted and deprived of their freedoms by the state on the basis that fruits are bad for society, then you would likely see similar frustrations expressed about an article title that includes the phrase "tomatoes and fruits" to distinguish them.
- lo_zamoyski 9mo agoThis is such a terrible analogy. Hunted? Alcohol in moderation is relaxing. Most drugs, OTOH, when used at the doses that make them attractive to recreational drug users, impair reason, and impairing reason is not just stupid, but immoral. We can debate the particular methods by which the state regulates or otherwise deals with drug use, but there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the criminalization of such drugs as such. No one has a right to take drugs (there is no right to immorality). This may seem alien to a culture whose emaciated understanding of morality is exhausted by the concept of consent. The law is a teacher, and it is good to teach people that recreational drug use (and drunkenness) is a bad thing. Like all immorality, it is an insult to one's dignity and humanity. We can tolerate the impairment of reason as a proportionate side effect [0] (for instance, high doses of morphine given to terminally ill patients in extreme pain), but this is not recreational use. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/
- master-lincoln 9mo agoAlcohol impairs cognitive functions more than Marijuana when under high influence.
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo agoWittgenstein has an example, imagine you are on a construction site and someone says 'Slab!' Do they mean 'That is a slab.' or 'Hand me that slab.'? Context matters. There is no correct answer. There are no metaphysical truth particles that shake 'True!'. Expressivism, how you feel about the statement, is going to decide what you think. Anyway, I used to intentionally say things like "I love drugs, although its specifically Caffeine."
- micromacrofoot 9mo agoyou can't ignore societal context though, most people do not consider alcohol a drug at this point... same story with caffeine we have to operate in people space
- swed420 9mo ago> most people do not consider alcohol a drug at this point But that's presumably why the parent commenter spoke up in the first place. Industry-fueled self-delusion can be intercepted if we make the effort to do so.
- micromacrofoot 9mo agoI would argue that making the case on an individual level in this context can be more off-putting than helpful, and can have a negative effect.
- swed420 9mo agoSpoken like a true alcoholic (former me would know)
- micromacrofoot 9mo agoWas internet pedantry ultimately what helped you decide to quit?
- swed420 9mo agoI don't expect you to take my word, but fwiw, I obviously know nothing about you personally and did not mean it that way. It's just that what you said reminded me vividly of past me. Could have just been a coincidence, but either way, maybe our exchange will help somebody else in a tight spot. > Was internet pedantry ultimately what helped you decide to quit? No, at the time, the internet pedantry and the drinking actually helped fuel each other. Sober me now has more healthy limits regarding the internet, and I unplug when it becomes unhealthy instead of using it as an excuse to drink. What ultimately helped me quit drinking was several things combined over a long enough time, including: * in-person groups like AA (replacing the higher power stuff with an agnostic modification I found meaningful at the time) and S.M.A.R.T. * online communities like /r/stopdrinking and /r/cripplingalcoholism * regular therapy to target root causes like personal mental deficits (and how to re-wire my brain away from them) and other life struggles that were keeping me trapped in the cycle and fueling the addiction and symptoms of depression
- dana321 9mo agoAnimals and dogs
- sejje 9mo agoOr a counterpoint, "humans and animals." We see a distinction for that one, just like we do for alcohol.
- lo_zamoyski 9mo agoThere is a reason for this distinction. Alcohol in moderation is relaxing and can be enjoyable to the senses. Most drugs, and at the doses that make them appealing for recreational use, impair the exercise and function of reason and the sense faculties that inform it. (Drunkenness is bad for the same reason.) Given how central and essential to humanity reason is, that's an incredibly important distinction.
- dapangzi 9mo agoLogic does not follow to me. Plenty of drugs, used in moderation, are also relaxing and can be enjoyable to the senses. Alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, and marijuana products ARE drugs, not sure why people insist on making the distinction.
- nutjob2 9mo agoI've had someone tell me "pot isn't a drug" and what they meant is that pot is like alcohol.
- mothballed 9mo agoWeed is expensive. But not terribly addictive. Another words, a luxury product, but people will not usually forego necessities to get it like more addictive drugs. I don't think there is any controversy there is at least a weak link between intelligence and access to luxury goods. In other news, occasional cigar smokers have slightly lower cancer rates. It aint the cigars... -------------------------------------------- Edit: those talking about price being cheap in US: the data is from UK biobank. Unclear to me if that's actually UK citizens, but prices in UK are significantly higher than those quoting legal weed state prices. It appears those downvoting / rebutting are attempting to strong-arm a US centric view into foreign sourced data. Using data from the UK Biobank, which includes health information from over 500,000 adults, associations between cannabis use, regional brain volume, and cognition in participants aged 40–70 years (mean age = 54.5) were evaluated.
- BugsJustFindMe 9mo ago> Another words (in other words)
- cromka 9mo agoWeed is expensive? Compared to alcohol, it's cheaper, considering how little of it you need to maintain the intoxication. Weed was never a luxury substance. Cocaine and others are.
- Der_Einzige 9mo agoYeah lmao, prices fell to the floor, especially on the US west coast.
- tartoran 9mo agoIt’s cheap for ocassional use, yes. However, heavy users spend quite a bit for their habit since their tolerance level is shut. Also I never found it to be addictive but that’s my own bias, there are a lot of users who can’t go to sleep without it, not to mention daily and frequent use.
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- franktankbank 9mo agoBig brained olds love this one weird trick.
- sschueller 9mo agoHowever other research shows a concerning association between long-term, heavy cannabis use and an increased risk of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. [1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886010/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27886010/
- throwfaraway4 9mo agoThey call out moderation as being key
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- vovavili 9mo agoThe OP's article screams "I failed to control for confounders". Not sure why it is being upvoted so heavily.
- blamestross 9mo agoYeah, this strikes me as just selecting against conservatism, which in turn correlates with worse health outcomes.
- bigdict 9mo agoWas it a controlled study or just correlation?
- gunsle 9mo agoAs a long time marijuana user, these pro weed articles always crack me up. Sure it has some limited legitimate medical usages for pain or other applications. Vast majority of users are just addicts in denial, myself included for the longest time. Anthropologists in the future will be studying the effects of drastically increased marijuana consumption on society for decades in the future. I do wonder when the general populace will wake up to the propaganda, for example, how it’s clearly a gateway drug and clearly addictive on some level.
- throwfaraway4 9mo agoI mean so is sugar, alchohol, synthetic opioids, ect. Pick your poison. Life is about trade-offs.
- zdragnar 9mo agoYou don't actually have to pick any of them.
- LargoLasskhyfv 9mo agoYour brain needs glucose. So some form of sugar is essential.
- zdragnar 9mo agoYour brain doesn't need to indulge in sugar to the point of becoming a poisonous vice. You can get more than a sufficient amount eating readily available whole foods. It's a bit like suggesting we are all addicted to water. Sure, enough of it will kill you, but that's not exactly helpful pedantry.
- LargoLasskhyfv 9mo agoIt depends. Not enough water kills you too.
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- arduanika 9mo agoDude, but what about like, correlation versus causation, man?
- blitzar 9mo agoLooks like I picked a bad day to give up cannabis.
- swed420 9mo agoModeration as found in /r/petioles is a middle ground that works for many people
- nyeah 9mo agoCannabis usage is linked to self-reported better cognitive function. But some new studies suggest it's not wise to do technical interviews while baked. Nobody can explain this paradox.
- sfc32 9mo agoThey don't call it "dope" because it makes you smarter
- throwfaraway4 9mo agoDefine "smart". "Your bring gets smart but your head gets dumb" - Smash Mouth
- ndsipa_pomu 9mo agoBut they (or at least Harry J Anslinger) did make up the name "marijuana" just so that it sounds vaguely Mexican/Spanish in an attempt to link racism and drug enforcement.
- spongebobstoes 9mo agothis is not a good study. it says that most cannabis use occured when young, and they then measure brains and cognitive test performance when older this feels like reading tea leaves
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo agoWhat is the point of having a study published in a journal when no one can read it? Creds? It has no cred to me unless I can read it. Appeal to authority is the opposite of science. Anyway, sounds like induction, it might be probabilistically true, but they don't have the theory to prove it. (Popper ruined me)
- jacquesm 9mo agoLet me counter this with all of my anecdata: I don't know a single pothead that improved compared to who they were (mentally especially, including cognitive function) compared to when I knew them before they started smoking pot. I'm sure they exist, I have not met them in person yet.
- AndrewKemendo 9mo agoYou know at least one Hey buddy
- jacquesm 9mo agoTechnically, not in person ;) I know lots of people that smoke heavily and I've watched their trajectory over decades. It's a sad story really. I'm pretty sure if you manage it responsibly the benefits may well outweigh the downsides but over the long term it really adds up. Of course, everybody ages, and people are not usually as sharp as they were in their twenties or earlier. But given that I also have access to a sizeable control group where I don't see that effect I figure it has to have some factual basis too large to be just handwaved away. Feel free to correct the fact that we haven't met in person by the way, you & yours are always welcome here.
- AndrewKemendo 9mo agoI know - I’m planning my europe visit this summer most likely!
- jacquesm 9mo agoVery nice, send me a heads up a few weeks in advance please.
- Schmerika 9mo agoI've seen many. There are no shortage of successful people who say so themselves. Read what any of your favorite musicians have to say about it. Check the science and testimony on it enhancing creativity and sensory experience, helping people see see themselves and the world from a new perspective - introspective development. You know, the same sort of introspection that might make one wonder if your statement above says a lot more about you, and your values, than it does about cannabis enjoyers.
- daft_pink 9mo agoIs this causation or correlation?
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ifwinterco 9mo agoThere actually is a plausible mechanism here: various cannabinoids are anti-inflammatory and reduce excitotoxicity in the brain. On the margin, this should reduce the risk of some brain diseases as you get older. However as much as I love loud there are obvious downsides to daily use
- eudamoniac 9mo agoI enjoy a good edible now and then, but this sounds like every popsci study that fails to reproduce.
- periodjet 9mo agoI smoked daily for years. I’m endlessly relieved that I no longer do. Quitting was like getting an almost immediate intelligence, memory, focus, and QoL boost.
- tsoukase 9mo agoThere is no chemical shortcut to brain health. If you have a neurotransmitter shortage, a substitution is suggested to bring it back. There is never a cannabis shortage or for that matter opioid or benzo and a surplus is harmful. Their use is justified only if another effect is desired (pain killing for cannabis and opioids or anxiolysis for benzo).
- joquarky 9mo ago> There is never a cannabis shortage Citations to the contrary: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5576607/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5576607/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_endocannabinoid_deficiency_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_endocannabinoid_defic...
- tsoukase 9mo agoFrom Wikipedia: > The nature of the syndrome and existence of CECD as a clinically meaningful condition have been called into question by those who wish to roll back legal access. I belong to the scepticists although I want cannabis to remain legal. The symptom constellation of pain and the other mentioned has very complicated basis that almost any theory can be supported. In the meantime in my setting 95% of medical cannabis uses are recreational.
- eboy 9mo ago[dead]