Earlier this summer came disturbing evidence that weed can leave permanent marks on the way your DNA ends up getting expressed via the process of methylation (i.e. the addition of methyl groups to DNA molecules). And just this week, The Wall Street Journal published a sad and worrying piece about the increasing number of pregnant women turning to marijuana to deal with pain and anxiety. (The drug makes both worse, the best data shows).
Now?
A horrifying new study suggests that links THC use to chromosomal errors in embryos. Researchers in Canada and Israel showed that IVF embryos exposed to the drug were more likely to suffer from all kinds of chromosomal issues:
Differential expression analysis revealed 89 genes up-regulated and 227 genes down-regulated greater than 2-fold . . . when assessing the impact of the THC1 vs Ctrl. . . . THC2 exposure induced a greater magnitude of transcriptomic dysregulation, with 402 up-regulated and 62 down-regulated genes identified.
Up- and downregulation simply mean that more or less of some cellular components gets produced—so it’s clear that the THC is having major effects on the biochemistry here.
It’s also worth noting that, per the study:
Both THC1 and THC2 treatment led to a 9% increase in aneuploidy and a higher proportion of complex aneuploidy, defined by the gain or loss of more than three chromosomes.
Aneuploidy is when embryos do not have the correct number of chromosomes. This finding suggests that not only does THC drive up the chances of this happening significantly, it also increases the chances that more severe kinds of aneuploidy will occur when they do occur.
The upshot of this is that the drug seems to interfere with human egg cells in a way that makes conception and normal embryo development less likely. In a way, this finding complements the long-known data around weed’s terrible effect on male fertility. From a 2019 systematic review:
In 20 chronic marijuana users who smoked marijuana at least 4 days per week for 6 months those who smoked 10 or more times per week had a significantly lower average ± SD sperm count than men who smoked 5 to 9 marijuana cigarettes per week. This suggests an inverse relationship between marijuana use and sperm count. A Danish cohort study on marijuana use in 1,215 participants revealed similar changes. Men who reported using marijuana more than once per week had a 28% lower sperm concentration and a 29% lower sperm count than men who had never used marijuana.
The list of ways in which weed harms the human body is clearly endless: the brain, the heart, the luings, the epigenome, and now human egg cells. No wonder the industry has spent millions convincing America that the drug they’re peddling is “safe” and natural.” That propaganda is affecting very vulnerable people, like expecting mothers. This study needs to get out far and wide to counteract Big Weed’s propaganda.