Could Pot Prevent a Pot Belly? Researchers Get the Skinny on Cannabis

Oct. 12, 2022 – Another stoner stereotype bites the mud: Despite its appetite-boosting results – higher often called the “munchies” – hashish may very well assist hold your weight in test.

 Cannabis customers could also be much less more likely to turn out to be overweight than individuals who abstain, in accordance with a latest examine within the journal Health Economics. The examine tracked well being information from the state of Washington earlier than and after 2014, the 12 months hashish turned broadly accessible there for leisure use. 

According to the examine: “Marijuana legalization, which allowed for recreational marijuana dispensaries to open, resulted [in] decreases in obesity rates for Washington State.” 

During the 4 years after legalization, the state’s weight problems charge was 5.4% decrease, on common, than it will have been had hashish not been legalized. 

How Did They Figure That Out? 

The researchers arrange one thing known as an artificial counterfactual. 

“It’s the best approximation of what Washington would have looked like had it not legalized marijuana,” says lead writer Raymond March, PhD, an assistant professor of utilized economics at North Dakota State University. March and his colleagues got here up with a inhabitants that is like Washington state’s by combining information from states that didn’t legalize throughout those self same 4  years, together with Arizona, Minnesota, Kansas, and New Hampshire.

Hence the “synthetic counterfactual” – what Washington may need seemed like had it not legalized. The authors conclude that the state would have had 5.4% extra overweight folks over the “post-treatment period” – the 4 years after legalization – with the medical bills and human distress that go together with such obesity-related situations as diabetes, coronary heart illness, stroke, and elevated threat of early dying. 

The researchers additionally in contrast Washington state’s weight problems numbers with the nationwide development. Both development upward, however after 2014, Washington’s charge of enhance declined considerably. 

Why Might This Be Happening?

Thomas Clark, PhD, a physiologist with the Department of Biological Sciences at Indiana University in South Bend, addressed one potential purpose in a 2018 examine within the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. According to the examine, “Cannabis use appears to reverse the impact of the modern American diet on health by reducing the effects of an elevated ratio of omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids on endocannabinoid (eCB) tone.” 

Clark explains: “The 1970s saw increasing obesity in the United States, and it’s still rising today. It began with the government subsidies of corn- and soybean oil, which alter the body’s physiological regulation of metabolism. When you alter the balance of omega-6 fatty acids and omega-3 fatty acids – which you do by increasing vegetable oils such as soybean oil in the diet – the body’s endocannabinoid system becomes overactive, resulting in weight gain.” 

The endocannabinoid system – which promotes homeostasis, or steadiness, within the physique – is regulated by signaling molecules which are mimicked by chemical substances in hashish. Yes, hashish stimulates urge for food, therefore its therapeutic use by folks with illnesses like AIDS, or who’re getting appetite-killing remedies like chemotherapy. But in accordance with Clark, it additionally down-regulates the endocannabinoid system, bringing it into steadiness, stopping weight achieve, and, theoretically at the very least, serving to the folks of Washington gradual the tide of weight achieve of their state.

“My research indicates that we should look at these metabolic diseases and their correlation with cannabis use,” he says. “There may be a significant health benefit to cannabis use.”

If these advantages could be confirmed, hashish is perhaps one reply to the swelling waistlines and well being dangers of the American public.