Science

DetlefK

(16,423 posts) Thu Feb 15, 2018, 07:30 AM Feb 2018

Study: Alcohol damages the human brain way worse than marijuana.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/02/weed-wont-cause-brain-damage-way-alcohol-will-study-finds/

Kent Hutchison, a co-author of the study, told Medical News Today that he wanted to examine what effect pot has on a person's brain because there isn't a conclusive answer to the question.

"When you look at these studies going back years, you see that one study will report that marijuana use is related to a reduction in the volume of the hippocampus," he said. "The next study then comes around, and they say that marijuana use is related to changes in the cerebellum.

"The point is that there's no consistency across all of these studies in terms of the actual brain structures."

For the study, researchers wanted to see the relationship between alcohol and marijuana use and the volume of gray and white matter in a person's brain. Both gray and white matter are important for a healthy and functioning brain.

The study involved 853 people aged 18 to 55 and 439 teenagers. They had "a range of alcohol and cannabis use," the researchers wrote.

It was found that among those who drank alcohol, adults — and to a lesser extent, teens — had a reduction in gray matter volume. The study found that white matter was affected in adults, but not teenagers, who drank. These effects were especially seen in adults with a history of drinking for years, according to Medical News Today.

But among marijuana users (defined as those who had smoked in the past 30 days), there was no relationship between getting high and the structure of a person's brain.

That led Hutchinson to make a bold proclamation.

"While marijuana may also have some negative consequences," he told Medical News Today, "it definitely is nowhere near the negative consequences of alcohol."