(Press-News.org) Inhaling Cannabis May Greatly Increase Your Risk of Getting Asthma
If you’re looking to reduce your chances of developing lung disease, say experts at UC San Francisco, then it may be smart to avoid inhaling cannabis.
A new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that inhaling marijuana every day is associated with a 44% increased chance of developing asthma. It also increased the odds of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by 27%.
The COPD risk may be understated, since the disease takes decades to develop, and the researchers did not have detailed information on how long people in the study had been using cannabis.
In defining the concept of inhaling, the researchers included smoking, vaping, and so-called “dabbing,” which involves breathing in the vapors of concentrated marijuana.
The study found an association between elevated risks to a person’s lungs and doing any of those things with cannabis even for those who had never smoked cigarettes.
For this group, inhaling marijuana every day was linked to a 51% increased likelihood of developing asthma. The association with COPD was also elevated, but it was not statistically significant.
The study is the largest yet to examine the association between inhaling cannabis and risks to respiratory health among people who have not smoked cigarettes. Of the 380,000 adult participants, nearly 222,000 had never smoked tobacco. The data comes from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a national survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Experts say the broad legalization of marijuana across much of the country and the perception that it is healthier than tobacco has led people to minimize the risks.
“The message about smoking tobacco being bad for you has gotten out there, but for cannabis, it’s much less clear,” said Alison Rustagi, MD, PhD, assistant professor at UCSF and first author of the paper.
“If people are looking to reduce their likelihood of developing a chronic lung disease, they should not start using cannabis,” she said. “And if they already smoke cannabis, they should do it less often.”
Additional UCSF authors: Abra M. Jeffers, PhD, F. Julian Graham, Beth E. Cohen, MD, MAS, Amy L. Byers, PhD, MPH, Stanton Glantz, PhD, Salomeh Keyhani, MD.
Funding: Simon Memorial Fund (7710-138339-7500274-45), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (CX002713, IK6 CX002386), National Institute on Aging (P30 AG044281, 1R03AG082924, 5R01AG058678), VA VISN21 (Early Career Award Program).
About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.
###
Follow UCSF
ucsf.edu | Facebook.com/ucsf | YouTube.com/ucsf
END
Inhaling cannabis may greatly increase your risk of getting asthma
2025-09-19
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Improving question answering over building codes by evaluating retrievers and fine-tuning LLMs
2025-09-19
Researchers have focussed on building a QA system which can answer query of user from building code and reduces the laborious traditional way of manual querying. One possible solution to build a robust QA system is to utilise the power of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG). Researchers have explored the potential of several retrieval methods and efficiency of Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA) to fine-tune Large Language Models (LLMs). Retrievers and LLMs are core component of a RAG system, and their performance affects ...
Possible breakthrough in the development of effective biomaterials
2025-09-19
Many hopes rested on so-called tissue engineering: With the help of stem cells, skin and other organs could be grown, thereby enabling better wound healing and better transplants. Although some of this is already a reality, the level expected around 20 years ago has not yet been achieved because the stem cells do not always bind to the required host material as they should in theory. An international research team led by chemist Professor Shikha Dhiman from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has now found the reason for this: "Whether an interaction ...
Federal grants support research on AI-driven protein design
2025-09-19
Two projects at the University of California, Davis, that use artificial intelligence to design and engineer proteins for industrial and health applications have been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).
The grants are part of a $32 million investment in AI and protein engineering announced Aug. 7 by the NSF Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP). Both teams are affiliated with the UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health in collaboration with industry partners. Total funding to UC Davis will be about $1 million over three years.
The two grants are among five announced by NSF that aim to ...
Experts explore AI’s future in health care at UTA
2025-09-19
The University of Texas at Arlington will bring together experts and innovators at the fifth annual Texas Health Informatics Alliance Conference, exploring how artificial intelligence is shaping the future of health care.
The conference will take place Friday, Sept. 26, in the Bluebonnet Ballroom of the University Center. This year’s theme, ALL IN: Practice of Trustworthy and Responsible AI Operations in Health Care, reflects its focus on ethical, effective and patient-centered AI applications.
“Our conference has become a must-attend event for anyone in health informatics,” said Marion Ball, Presidential ...
The self-taught seismologist: Monitoring earthquakes from optic fibers with AI
2025-09-19
Seismology is undergoing significant change with the rise of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), a fast-growing technology that leverages existing fiber-optic cables—including those used for the Internet—into ultra-dense seismic networks with meter-scale sensor spacing. DAS provides a scalable and cost-effective way to monitor earthquakes from local to global scales, but it also poses a pressing challenge: the massive volume of data produced outpaces human capacity to analyze. For example, ...
Poverty and social disadvantage in women and men and fertility outcomes
2025-09-19
About The Study: The findings of this cohort study suggest that poverty and social disadvantage, characterized by low educational level and household income among both women and men, were associated with lower fecundability (defined as the per-month probability of conceiving) and increased risks of subfertility (defined as a time to pregnancy or the duration of actively pursuing pregnancy of more than 12 months or use of assisted reproductive technology) but not with miscarriage risk. Further studies are needed to identify the underlying and explanatory mechanisms associated with fertility outcomes and the potential for novel public health strategies for couples desiring pregnancy.
Corresponding ...
Modeling the impact of MMR vaccination strategies on measles outbreaks in Texas
2025-09-19
About The Study: The findings of this study highlight the critical role of improving measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage to prevent large-scale measles outbreaks, particularly in regions with declining immunization rates.
Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kaiming Bi, Ph.D., email kaiming.bi@uth.tmc.edu.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi: 10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.3992)
Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and ...
How an ant’s nose knows
2025-09-19
Ant societies are built on scent. Pheromones guide the insects to food, warn them of predators, and regulate the rhythms of their colonies. This chemical communication system is governed by a simple rule: one receptor, one neuron. Ant genomes contain hundreds of odorant receptor genes, each encoding a receptor tuned to specific chemicals. Were a neuron to express multiple receptors at once, the messages arriving in the brain would be scrambled, and the ant would lose its finely tuned sense of smell.
Now, scientists working with the clonal raider ant have discovered the unique process ...
Wildfires are changing the air we breathe—here’s what that means for your health
2025-09-19
As wildfires grow larger and more frequent across the West, researchers from Colorado, Utah, and California are digging into how smoke affects the air—and our health.
In a new study published in the journal Atmospheric Environment, the team shows that large wildfires, like those we’ve seen in Colorado, Oregon, and California in recent years, produce large amounts of ozone into the atmosphere. This not only impacts our lungs and other health concerns but also contributes to the warming of the planet.
CU Denver mathematics professor emeritus Jan Mandel was part of the research team, which included faculty from the University ...
Quantum scars boost electron transport and drive the development of microchips
2025-09-19
Quantum physics often reveals phenomena that defy common sense. A new theory of quantum scarring deepens our understanding of the connection between the quantum world and classical mechanics, sheds light on earlier findings and marks a step forward towards future technological applications.
Quantum mechanics describes the behaviour of matter and energy at microscopic scales, where randomness seems to prevail. Yet even within seemingly chaotic systems, hidden order may lie beneath the surface. Quantum scars are one such example: they are regions where electrons prefer to travel along ...