Abusing alcohol is highly associated with causing liver disease (ALD) characterized by alcoholic steatosis (AS), steatohepatitis (AH), fibrosis, cirrhosis (AC) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although the combined use of cannabis (marijuana) with alcohol and the development of liver disease remains unclear, cannabis has been shown to have an anti-inflammatory effect on human physiology.
The authors of this study evaluated the discharge records of 319,514 patients 18 years or older with a history of past or current abusive alcohol use. They studied the four distinct phases of progressive alcoholic liver disease with respect to 3 distinct cannabis (marijuana) exposure groups.
Non-cannabis users represented 90.39%, non-dependent cannabis users represented 8.26%, and dependent cannabis users represented 1.36%. Their findings indicate that among alcohol users, those who use cannabis have significantly lower odds of developing AS, AH, AC and HCC.
Strangely, dependent cannabis users had even lower odds of developing liver disease than non-dependent users. The authors give no causality to their findings.
*No authors, this one or otherwise, are promoting marijuana usage as a justification for alleviating the potential negative effects of using or abusing alcohol.*
