Cannabis use and the risk of developing a psychotic disorder

Cannabis use and the risk of developing a psychotic disorder

Hall, W., & Degenhardt, L. (2008). Cannabis use and the risk of developing a psychotic disorder. World psychiatry: official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 7(2), 68–71. doi:10.1002/j.2051-5545.2008.tb00158.x

The authors mainly review the fact that usage of cannabis by young adulthood and adolescence is contributory to the cause of schizophreniform psychosis. To support their verdict, the authors made summaries of longitudinal studies that have examined the relationship between the use and the risk of psychosis or its symptoms as well as having controlled for possible confounders like the form of drugs and also the personal characteristics that outline the rise of risk of psychosis.

Basing on the use of their findings of cannabis regularly, outline an increased risk of schizophrenia as well as high psychotic symptoms reported. Such a relationship has prolonged after controlling for confounding variables like the personal characteristics as well usage of other drugs. The relationship did not seem to be explained by the usage of cannabis as self-medicate symptoms of psychosis. However, it is clear that the contributory causal relationship is biologically plausible as a result of psychotic disorder that is characterized by disturbance of the dopamine neurotransmitter system in which the cannabinoid system interacts has been depicted by not only the animal studies but also the human provocation study. The authors, therefore, explore the clinical and public health implications in the most pleasurable hypothesis in which cannabis use precipitates schizophrenia on individuals who are vulnerable due to personal or family history of schizophrenia.

Pasman, J. A., Verweij, K., Gerring, Z., Stringer, S., Sanchez-Rouge, S., Treur, J. L., … Vink, J. M. (2018). GWAS of lifetime cannabis use reveals new risk loci, genetic overlap with psychiatric traits, and a causal influence of schizophrenia. Nature Neuroscience, 21(9), 1161–1170. doi:10.1038/s41593-018-0206-1

The authors utilize the largest genome-wide association study (GWAS) for lifetime cannabis to date (N=184,765) to identify eight genome-wide significant independent single nucleotide polymorphisms in different six regions. All measured genetic variants put together explained 11% of the variance. The Gene-based test outlined 35 significant genes in different 16 regions, and S-predixcan analyses portray that 21 genes had different expression levels for the cannabis users as compared to the non-users.

The most robust findings made by the authors across different analyses was the CADM2 that has been associated with the substance use as well as the risk-taking. A significant genetic correlation was realized, with 14 of 25 tested substances use with mental health-related traits, which include smoking, use of alcohol, schizophrenia, and risk-taking. With the use of Mendelian randomization analysis, the authors portray evidence for a positive causal influence of schizophrenia risk on the use of cannabis. Generally, the study outline the new insight into the etiology on the use of cannabis and its relation with mental health.

Sami, M. B., & Bhattacharyya, S. (2018). Are cannabis-using and non-using patients in different groups? Towards understanding the neurobiology of cannabis use in psychotic disorders. Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 32(8), 825–849. doi:10.1177/0269881118760662

The authors make claims that suggest the use of cannabis is an important potential preventable risk factor for the development of psychotic illness and more so its worse prognosis the is accompanied by the psychosis. The authors, therefore, summarizes the relevant evidence to mainly argue that the time has come to ensure that they examine the neurobiological effects of cannabis in a patient with a psychotic disorder. They summarized evidence from longitudinal studies that controlled for a range of potential confounders of the association of cannabis use with the escalating risk of developing psychotic disorders, high risk of hospitalization, longer hospital stay, and the failure of treatment for psychosis with establishing illness.

Despite the fact that some evidence outlined that users of cannabis and non-users patients with the psychotic disorder might portray some distinct patterns of neurocognitive and neurodevelopmental impairments, the biological underpinnings of the effects outlined by cannabis remain to be fully elucidated. The authors, however, made the second and the third section their work where they make a review of 70 studies that comprises of over 3000 patients with psychotic disorder with the main aim of delineating potential neurobiological and neurochemical mechanism that may underline the effect of cannabis among the psychotic disorders and more so suggest avenues for future research.

Stoecker, W. V., Rapp, E. E., & Malters, J. M. (2018). Marijuana Use in the Era of Changing Cannabis Laws: What Are the Risks? Who is Most at Risk?. Missouri medicine, 115(5), 398–404.

The authors in this article review recent findings on medical aspects of the use of marijuana with the main aim of identifying those who are at considerable risk of marijuana-related medical problems or complications. The authors made an analysis of the medical marijuana laws on health perspective and, in particular, concentrated on the disproportionate effects on adolescents and children. They acknowledge that chronic marijuana use predominantly affects certain areas of the brain that mainly overlaps the default mode network linked hubs in the brain that act or play a supervisory role in critical thought processes like attention, social interaction, and even the memory. The disruption of the default mode network areas has been documented based on schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, illnesses with symptoms, and more so, the brain changes that parallel findings in marijuana abusers. The finding of the article, however, counter the claims that marijuana is a harmless drug and hence causing an alarm to individuals who are cannabis dependence.

Hall, W., & Degenhardt, L. (2007). Prevalence and correlates of cannabis use in developed and developing countries. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 20(4), 393-397.

The authors came up with this work with the main purpose of reviewing recent research on the prevalence, antecedents, and correlates of cannabis by using young adults both in developed and developing countries.

According to their findings, cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the world, and more o it uses seems to increase in developed and developing countries. In developed countries, users portray, rebelliousness, poor performance in school, antisocial behavior, and affiliation with drug-using peers. Additionally, antecedents are now reported in developing countries. Dependence has been outlined to be an underappreciated risk of cannabis that always affect one in six to seven young individual who use cannabis in developing countries. Adolescent cannabis dependence is correlated with a high risk of using illicit drugs, depression, and the symptoms of psychosis. On the other hand, the plausibility of cannabis playing a contributory causal role has increased for the symptoms of psychosis in longitudinal studies but also remain contentious, basing on the case of other illicit drug use and the mood disorders common causal explanations remain difficult to exclude.

Generally, the authors outlined that early and regular cannabis use in adolescence predicts an escalation risk of cannabis dependence, which in turn predicts an increased risk of using other illicit drugs and reporting symptoms of mood and psychotic disorders.