B-313 Relationship between legal recreational drug use with folate and vitamin B12 status in general adult population in Newfoundland and Labrador
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Recent Statistics Canada surveys show high and increasing use of legalized recreational drugs; alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis amongst Canadian adults. In Newfoundland and Labrador, alcohol use rose to 80% of adults by 2019, while cannabis use bounced from under 10% in 2013 to nearly 25% in 2019. Tobacco use, primarily through cigarette smoking, varies by sex and age, with 8–12% of adults regularly smoking, though total nicotine use is higher when vaping is included. These substances impact food consumption, digestion, and nutrient absorption, affecting caloric intake and essential vitamins. Heavy alcohol use is linked to B vitamin deficiencies, tobacco negatively affects vitamin levels, and cannabis increases high-calorie food intake while reducing vegetable consumption, potentially worsening vitamin status. The objective of this study is to examine how recreational drug use, as indicated by biomarkers, relates to poor nutrition and increased risk for folate and vitamin B12 deficiencies, affecting hematologic parameters. Methods We analyzed serum samples from 299 archived blood specimens across three age groups: under 45, 45–64, and over 64 years of both sexes for commonly used legalized recreational drugs targeting nicotine, cotinine, THC, and THC-COOH (cannabis) levels by a LC-MS/MS assay developed in our laboratory. The samples were also tested for serum folate and vitamin B12 concentrations using immunoassay. We hypothesized that recreational drug use correlates with poorer nutrition and increased risk of folate and vitamin B12 deficiencies. Results The presence of nicotine, cotinine, and THC-COOH was significantly higher in males under 45 compared to over 65-year-olds. However, females did not exhibit significant differences of any recreational drug concentrations amongst the age groups. Although plasma vitamin B12 concentrations showed no association with recreational drug use, plasma folate levels negatively correlated with nicotine, cotinine, and THC-COOH concentrations. Conclusion These findings suggest that above recreational drugs may negatively impact plasma folate concentrations, potentially contributing to nutritional deficiencies. This study also provides insights into age-specific patterns of legalized recreational drug use and a potential link to risk for nutritional deficiencies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".