If you've ever wondered how your Mary Jane-loving friends manage to avoid obesity despite certain obvious factors such as a lack of movement and impressive caloric intake, you're not alone.

A recent study compiled by researchers at the University of Nebraska, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center investigated the impact of pot on glucose, insulin, and insulin resistance in U.S. adults.

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After analyzing data from over 4,600 adults with a calculated mixture of current, past, and non-users, the study found some surprising benefits to Mother Nature's wonder drug.

Within the representative group, researchers found that people who currently used marijuana had significantly smaller waist circumferences than those who had never tried it. This result held true even after adjusting for factors such as age, sex, diet, and exercise.

The study also concluded that marijuana use was associated with lowered levels of insulin and insulin resistance as well as higher levers good cholesterol (HDL), which in turn could account for better insulin control and body weight regulation in addition to the lower occurrence of diabetes found in a previous study by the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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