Marijuana Affects The Index IQ

Marijuana Affects The Index IQ.
A altered analysis challenges preceding research that suggested teens put their long-term brainpower in danger when they smoke marijuana heavily. Instead, the breakdown indicated that the earlier findings could have been thrown off by another factor - the effect of inadequacy on IQ. The author of the new analysis, Ole Rogeberg, cautioned that his theory may not hold much water. "Or, it may revolution out that it explains a lot," said Rogeberg, a research economist at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, Norway.

The authors of the opening study responded to a plea for comment with a joint statement saying they stand by their findings. "While Dr Rogeberg's ideas are interesting, they are not supported by our data," wrote researchers Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi and Madeline Meier. Moffitt and Caspi are constitution professors at Duke University, while Meier is a postdoctoral confidant there.

Their study, published in August in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, attracted media notice because it suggested that smoking cook-pot has more than short-term effects on how people think. Based on an assay of mental tests given to more than 1000 New Zealanders when they were 13 and 38, the Duke researchers found that those who heavily reach-me-down marijuana as teens lost an average of eight IQ points over that time period.

It didn't seem to trouble if the teens later cut back on smoking pot or stopped using it entirely. In the direct term, people who use marijuana have memory problems and trouble focusing, research has shown. So, why wouldn't users have problems for years?

Smoking Increases The Risk Of Stillbirth

Smoking Increases The Risk Of Stillbirth.
Expectant mothers who smoke marijuana may triple their imperil for a stillbirth, a redone study suggests. The risk is also increased by smoking cigarettes, using other rightful and illegal drugs and being exposed to secondhand smoke. Stillbirth chance is heightened whether moms are exposed to pot alone or in combination with other substances, the study authors added. They found that 94 percent of mothers who had stillborn infants old one or more of these substances.

And "Even when findings are controlled for cigarette smoking, marijuana use is associated with an increased peril of stillbirth," said engender researcher Dr Michael Varner, associate director of women's health, obstetrics and gynecology at University of Utah School of Medicine. Stillbirth refers to fetal liquidation after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Among drugs, signs of marijuana use was most often found in umbilical twine blood from stillborn infants.

So "Because marijuana use may be increasing with increased legalization, the suitability of these findings may increase as well". Indeed, this seems probable as the push to legalize marijuana has gained momentum. Colorado and Washington condition voted for legalization of marijuana and states including California, Connecticut, Maine, Nevada and Oregon are legalizing its medical use.

In addition, these and other states, including New York and Ohio, are decriminalizing its use. "Both obstetric mind providers and the apparent should be aware of the associations between both cigarette smoking, including flexible exposure, and recreational/illicit drug use, and stillbirth". Although the numbers were smaller for direction narcotics, there appears to be an association between exposure to these drugs and stillbirth as well.

While the study Dec 2013 found an link between use of marijuana, other drugs and tobacco by pregnant women and higher risk of stillbirth, it did not confirm a cause-and-effect relationship. The report appears in the January issue of Obstetrics andamp; Gynecology. Study major author Dr Uma Reddy, a medical officer at the US National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said the intelligence why marijuana may growth the risk for stillbirths isn't clear.

Doctors Discovered How The Brain Dies

Doctors Discovered How The Brain Dies.
Shrunken structures clandestine the brains of important marijuana users might explain the stereotype of the "pothead," brain researchers report. Northwestern University scientists studying teens who were marijuana smokers or c whilom smokers found that parts of the capacity related to working memory appeared diminished in size - changes that coincided with the teens' snuff performance on memory tasks. "We observed that the shapes of brain structures affiliate to short-term memory seemed to collapse inward or shrink in people who had a history of day after day marijuana use when compared to healthy participants," said study author Matthew Smith.

He is an helpmate research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. The shrinking of these structures appeared to be more advanced in race who had started using marijuana at a younger age. This suggests that youngsters might be more impressionable to drug-related memory loss, according to the study, which was published in the Dec 16. 2013 emerge of the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.

So "The brain abnormalities we're observing are right away related to poor short-term memory performance. The more that understanding looks abnormal, the poorer they're doing on memory tests". The paper is provocative because the participants had not been using marijuana for a match up years, indicating that memory problems might persist even if the person quits smoking the drug, said Dr Frances Levin, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association's Council on Addiction Psychiatry. At the same time, Levin cautioned that the article presents a chicken-or-egg problem.

It's not open whether marijuana use caused the respect problems or people with memory problems tended to use marijuana. "The big $64000 topic is whether these memory problems predate the marijuana use". The work focused on nearly 100 participants sorted into four groups: healthy people who never used pot, thriving people who were former heavy pot smokers, people with schizophrenia who never used cauldron and schizophrenics who were former heavy pot users. Researchers used MRI scans to think over the structure of participants' brains.