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A team led by researchers at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland found that for every five years of marijuana use, middle-aged people could have poorer and poorer verbal memory. |
The study, published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, followed 3,500 young adults, aged 18-30 at the start of the study period, for 25 years, into middle age. |
At a follow-up, 84 percent of the participants admitted some past marijuana use, but only around 12 percent said they continued to use the drug into middle age.
T The men and women were tested on their ability to remember words, their mental processing speed and executive function.
Those who were actively using marijuana scored worse on verbal memory and mental processing. But in even those who had given up the drug, lifetime use still had an effect. For every five years of reported use, half of participants were able to recall one fewer word on a 15-word memory test. Tests showed that other areas of cognitive function weren't significantly affected.
"We did not expect to find such a consistent association with verbal memory for chronic exposure to marijuana,” lead author, Reto Auer of the University of Lausanne, told Reuters. |
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