I hesitate posting this because I am currently on medication and doing well and I am not suggesting that anyone goes off their medication. However what I do have a problem with is the link between cannabis(weed/marijuana), genetics and schizophrenia.
A while back for whatever reason you choose to believe, cannabis became associated with madness in general. Eventually it was associated with schizophrenia specifically. Ever since there has been an ongoing search for the relationship and every time there seems to be one a paper comes out that opposes the relationship. As humans we remember the negative and forget the positives.
Recently a paper came out about genetically modified mice with a gene associated with schizophrenia known as DISC-1. It was found that those with the modified gene showed schizophrenia related behaviours and brain changes when they were dosed with THC. Those with the modified gene and no THC were fine. Now everyone thinks that the link is confirmed. Let’s look deeper though.
The DISC-1 gene became popular because of a Scottish family who had a variety of mental disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar, severe depression along with minor psychiatric disorders. The same alteration of the gene has not been found but it was found that those with disorders including autism had variations in the expression of that gene. So the same code was not found but variations in the regulation of the protein associated are found to be correlated with disorders.
So, the mice’s gene was altered to change the expression and it showed similar behaviours in a mouse along with biochemical changes to that of a human with one of the various related disorders after being given THC during mouse “teenage years”. So it’s all correlations and similar and such with nothing concrete.
The fact that it’s not concrete is not even important though and my example of misdirection used by news that promote the negative. Why? Because antipsychotics affect the expression of DISC-1 which doesn’t mean they won’t help and to stop them. However it means that the Scottish family could have all just been on antipsychotics along with anyone else found with altered DISC-1 expression like those with autism and minor disorders. So for one thing a different expression of the DISC-1 gene doesn’t mean schizophrenia is genetic, and the second thing is that the study was actually meant to show that a certain protein can prevent psychosis symptoms but the news took it out of context.
So overall the study showed that taking antipsychotics makes you susceptible to psychosis when smoking cannabis and that media promoting pseudoscience attracts attention. However don’t trust me because I’m a university drop out, but even still it’s something to consider. So don’t go off your meds, but also don’t smoke weed while on them.
Also I heard that fresh breath is genetic and caused by a Colgate-2 gene and please ignore the following brackets so we get more funding at Colgate.(we only studied those who use Colgate)((Colgate affects the regulation of the Colgate-2 gene))