Marijuana may help bipolar patients manage moods, study finds

Written By Emily Gray Brosious 
 

 

(Image credit: deux/Corbis)

New research challenges assumptions about marijuana use among bipolar patients.

Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug among the general public and among people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, also known as manic depression.

While prevailing wisdom has long assumed marijuana exacerbates mood problems in bipolar patients, there’s actually very little conclusive evidence about what effects the drug has on clinical symptoms of this debilitating mood disorder.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School, Tufts University and McLean Hospital in Massachusetts recently set out to clear the fog on this issue in a study published online June 8, 2016 in the journal PLOS One.

As outlined in the study, entitled “Joint Effects: A Pilot Investigation of the Impact of Bipolar Disorder and Marijuana Use on Cognitive Function and Mood”:

Although many studies have reported that marijuana use precedes the onset of bipolar disorder, it remains unclear whether marijuana use contributes to the pathogenesis of the disorder, or if it is used to address symptomatology, perhaps as a form of premorbid self-medication, especially if traditional pharmacotherapeutic regimens are ineffective at symptom alleviation.

Further research is needed to clarify the relationship between marijuana use and the manifestation of bipolar disorder symptoms. Despite claims of negative outcomes associated with marijuana use, whether patients’ view marijuana use as successful in symptom improvement is rarely assessed.

Researchers’ latest findings shed new light on the topic and suggest marijuana use may actually improve mood stabilization in patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The study followed 12 bipolar patients who smoke marijuana, 18 bipolar patients who do not smoke marijuana, 23 marijuana smokers without bipolar disorder and 21 healthy controls who don’t smoke marijuana.

Participants rated their moods three times daily as well as after each time they used marijuana over the course of four weeks.

No significant differences were noted between cognitive function in bipolar patients that smoked marijuana and those who didn’t.

Furthermore, bipolar participants who regularly smoked marijuana reported notable reductions in mood symptoms each time they used the drug.

The findings suggest marijuana use may partially alleviate the clinical symptoms of bipolar disorder for some patients.

This study is limited by its small participant size and preliminary nature, which did not investigate the relationships between specific patterns or levels of marijuana use and symptom improvement.

The study also does not imply cause and effect, but it does establish a relationship between marijuana use and mood improvement, which ought to be investigated further, researchers say.

Researchers conclude:

Additional studies are needed to help shape public policy regarding conditions that may be amenable to MMJ (medical marijuana) treatment, especially with regard to psychiatric illnesses. The current study highlights preliminary evidence that patients with BPD who regularly smoked MJ reported at least short-term clinical symptom alleviation following MJ use, indicating potential mood-stabilizing properties of MJ in at least a subset of patients with BPD.

Furthermore, despite previous research showing that MJ use and BPD individually can have a negative impact on cognition, MJ use in BPD patients may not result in additional impairment. Further research is warranted to explore the impact of MJ on mood in clinical and non-clinical populations.