Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: A cross-sectional study

PLoS One. 2017 Apr 25;12(4):e0176416. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0176416. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

Cannabis use is associated with reduced prevalence of obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) in humans and mouse disease models. Obesity and DM are a well-established independent risk factor for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the most prevalent liver disease globally. The effects of cannabis use on NAFLD prevalence in humans remains ill-defined. Our objective is to determine the relationship between cannabis use and the prevalence of NAFLD in humans. We conducted a population-based case-control study of 5,950,391 patients using the 2014 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), Nationwide Inpatient Survey (NIS) discharge records of patients 18 years and older. After identifying patients with NAFLD (1% of all patients), we next identified three exposure groups: non-cannabis users (98.04%), non-dependent cannabis users (1.74%), and dependent cannabis users (0.22%). We adjusted for potential demographics and patient related confounders and used multivariate logistic regression (SAS 9.4) to determine the odds of developing NAFLD with respects to cannabis use. Our findings revealed that cannabis users (dependent and non-dependent) showed significantly lower NAFLD prevalence compared to non-users (AOR: 0.82[0.76-0.88]; p<0.0001). The prevalence of NAFLD was 15% lower in non-dependent users (AOR: 0.85[0.79-0.92]; p<0.0001) and 52% lower in dependent users (AOR: 0.49[0.36-0.65]; p<0.0001). Among cannabis users, dependent patients had 43% significantly lower prevalence of NAFLD compared to non-dependent patients (AOR: 0.57[0.42-0.77]; p<0.0001). Our observations suggest that cannabis use is associated with lower prevalence of NAFLD in patients. These novel findings suggest additional molecular mechanistic studies to explore the potential role of cannabis use in NAFLD development.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Case-Control Studies
  • Cross-Sectional Studies
  • Databases, Factual
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Marijuana Smoking*
  • Middle Aged
  • Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease / epidemiology*
  • Prevalence
  • Protective Factors

Grants and funding

This work was funded by a start-up grant to BTN by INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier, Institut National de la Reserche Scientifique, 531 Boulevard des Prairies, Laval (Quebec) H7V 1B7 Canada. The funder had no role in the project design, execution, data interpretation or decision to publish.