Smokers cannabis have a common gene with patients with schizophrenia according to the results of a study published in the medical journal Molecular Psychiatry. Indeed, the genes that increase the risk of schizophrenia would also promote the taste and addiction to cannabis.
Researchers at King’s College London studied medical data from 2,082 healthy people, 1,011 of whom had smoked cannabis. They looked at the genetic risks of patients developing schizophrenia.
A common gene between schizophrenia and cannabis use
Researchers have found that individuals genetically predisposed to schizophrenia are more likely to consume cannabis, and smoke more than those who do not have genes predisposing to this psychiatric disorder.
“Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the world but its use is more common in people with schizophrenia than in the general population. This psychiatric illness affects about 1 in 100 people and people who use cannabis are twice as likely to develop this disorder. Its factors are multiple, physical, genetic, psychological and environmental. From a genetic standpoint, researchers have already identified the variants associated with schizophrenia. But they had never been put in parallel with genes predisposing to the use of cannabis ”remind researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia, co-authors of the study.
