Despite medical cannabis in the US dating back more than 3 decades, the legalization movement in the last decade means millions and millions of US adults now have access to cannabis, for both medical and recreational purposes.
However, with this boom in use, concerns regarding the health effects of cannabis use have become a greater focal point of discussion among medical circles. According to a 2023 study in JAMA Network Open, 17% of a 175,000-patient cohort of adults reported cannabis use in the previous 3 months and 34.7% of those individuals met the criteria for moderate to high risk for cannabis use disorder.
At the 84th American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, Halis Akturk, MD, associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes at the University of Colorado, led a session titled “The Highs and Lows of Cannabis Use in Diabetes-Behavioral and Psychosocial Considerations”. Based in Colorado, Akturk has a unique view from the frontlines of research and real-world practice as Colorado was among the first states to allow for both medical and nonmedical cannabis use.
In the past 5 years, Akturk has published numerous studies detailing the effects of cannabis use with type 1 diabetes. In 2019, a study from Akturk in JAMA Internal Medicine evidenced the elevated risk of diabetic ketoacidosis among adults with type 1 diabetes using cannabis receiving care at the Barbara Davis Center for Diabetes. Building o this research, a similar study published in Diabetes Care in 2020 confirmed a similar trend using data from the T1D Exchange clinical registry. In 2022, Akturk led an additional study providing clinicians with an overview of the differences in presentation between diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperglycemic ketosis due to cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.2,3,4
At ADA 2024, we sat down with Akturk to learn more about this emerging space, what additional risks are associated with cannabis use in adults with and without type 1 diabetes, and what questions hears most often from his colleague regarding the topic.
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