New York: A new study by French researches has found that marijuana smokers are thinner and less likely to be obese as compared to non-smokers.

According to MSNBC, researchers found that people who smoke marijuana regularly are less likely to be obese than non-pot smokers.

“We found that cannabis users are less likely to be obese than non-users,” the New York Daily News quoted Dr. Yann Le Strat, French psychiatrist and co-author of the new study, as saying.

“We were so surprised, we thought we had made a mistake,” he stated.

Using data from two epidemiologic studies of U.S. adults, researchers found that 22 percent to 25 percent of participants who didn’t smoke pot were obese, whereas only 14 percent to 17 percent of those people, who admitted to taking a toke at least three times a week, were overweight.

Le Strat said other factors, such as the stoners’ level of physical activity or diets, could have contributed to the results, but his team tried to rule out those factors.

The findings have been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

IANS