Smoking Marijuana Is Not Linked to Gaining Weight

Pot Smokers Get the Munchies, But Don't Pack On the Pounds

The French research team, led by psychiatrist Yann Le Strat, studied data collected from two surveys of over 52,000 people conducted by epidemiologists in the United States. They found that just 14 to 17 percent of patients who admitted smoking marijuana three times or more a week were obese, compared to 22 to 25 percent of people who said that they had not smoked pot in the previous 12 months.

Initially the researchers thought they had made a mistake, Dr. Le Strat told Reuter's Health. But after reviewing their data several times, the French researchers concluded that pot smokers indeed are less likely to be obese than those who abstain. But how can something that gives you the munchies double as a diet aid?

READ Marijuana and Your Sex Life - Is Marijuana Sex-Inhibiting, Sex-Enhancing, or Sex-Neutral?

Why Marijuana Causes the Munchies

When marijuana is lit, it releases a variety of compounds including some neuroactive chemicals known as cannabinoids. There are over 85 different cannabinoids in marijuana, and they interact with the human body in at least two different ways:

• Cells with cannabinoid receptor type 1 are found in the hippocampus and limbic system of the brain. When these brain cells bind to cannabinoids in pot, they "short circuit" the nerve impulses that inhibit behaviors generated in the hippocampus and limbic system. When the inhibitor neurons are shut off, impulses for certain kinds of behavior are stronger, including those for oral satisfaction. In marijuana smokers, this usually involves smoking even more pot and eating sensually satisfying food that has carbohydrate, salt, and crunchiness. There are also cannabinoid receptor type 1 receptors in the sex organs, which also reduce nerve impulses there.
• Cells with cannabinoid receptor type 2 are found in the immune system. Created in the spleen, these cells fight infection and disease by generating inflammation. When cannabinoids from marijuana bind to these cells, they produce less inflammation.

The best known cannabinoid in marijuana is tetrahydrocannabinol, abbreviated THC. Its action on cannabinoid receptor type 1 cells in the brain is to reduce sensitivity to pain. It also acts on cannabinoid receptor type 2 cells to stop inflammation. Delta-8-tetrahydrocannibinol (Δ8-THC) and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (Δ9-THC) mimic the action of a brain chemical called anandamide, its name taken from the Sanskrit word ananda, meaning "bliss" or "delight."

Anandamide is a chemical you probably never heard about, but without it, you would never have been born. The first task of anandamide is to help the fertilized egg implant itself into the womb. Throughout life, the body continues to make anandamide from a combination of lecithin, which you get from eating your veggies, and arachidonic acid, which you get from eating foods that are "bad" for you, such as salami and fried eggs. After birth, anandamide activates a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, making sugary foods more satisfying.

READ Sugar Addiction: How to Stop Sugar Cravings

There are many other chemicals in marijuana, but these three explain the munchies. THC switches off sexual response but also switches off inhibitions for other kinds of pleasure. Anandamide makes munchies, especially sugar-coated munchies, even more delicious. It also makes eating foods that contain vanilla more pleasurable—and vanilla is added to almost all processed foods in amounts your brain can detect even if your taste buds cannot.
 

Is Smoking Pot Likely to Become Next New Fad Diet?

Smoking marijuana removes inhibitions that prevent eating. It makes eating more pleasurable. How could smoking pot three times a week or more possibly be related to weighing less?
 

The answer is that marijuana does not just contain one psychoactive or immune-modulating chemical. It contains dozens of cannabinoids in addition to THC. One of these compounds, cannabigerol, doesn't make smokers high but does regulate the digestive tract, circulation, and male sexual function.

Cannabigerol "kicks in" after THC makes smokers high and gives them the munchies. One of its functions is to slow down passage of food through the digestive tract. After THC makes smokers hungry, cannabigerol keeps them full. Also, after THC wears off, cannabigerol increases the force of ejaculation in males who have sex, and antagonizes, or cancels out the force of another group of neuroceptors known as the 5-HT1A receptors.

When these receptors are antagonized:

• People become less sociable.
• They are less likely to act impulsively, whether the impulse is to eat yet more Cheetos or to get out and find a job.
• They are less likely to suffer compulsive avoidance of food, such as anorexia, but they are also less likely to suffer compulsive eating.
• They are more likely to engage addictive behaviors, such as the ritual surrounding the smoking of marijuana.
• And, probably most importantly for weight control, they have increased body temperature.

About 70 percent of all the food we eat goes to stoke the body's metabolic furnace. If body temperature is increased, literally thousands of metabolic processes in the cells go faster. Increased body weight leads to increased calorie expenditure, and regular smoking of pot seems to have a net effect of burning off even more calories than munchies take in.

READ Is Marijuana Addictive? You Can Bet Your Cheetos on the Answer

Researchers did not have data regarding exercise and weight gain comparing pot smokers with those who abstain. An increase in body temperature, and corresponding increase in metabolic rate, burns off calories the same way exercise does, and there are no weight-loss plateaus or training effects as the brain learns how to direct the muscles to do exercises more easily.

Is it a good idea to start smoking marijuana to take off the pounds? After all, a diet that lets you stuff yourself with crunchy snacks while keeping weight down seems like a dream come true for most dieters.

It is important to understand that this study did not find that smoking marijuana helps people lose weight. It more likely helps prevent them from putting weight on. While marijuana is not addictive in the sense of causing violent withdrawal reactions when it is stopped, chemicals in pot encourage further smoking of pot, shutting out people and activities that discourage smoking pot, and getting on with other life activities. In much of Europe and Canada and a few places in the United States, smoking pot is a personal choice, but years of not gaining weight are only possible by years of social inhibition. The cost of this kind of herbal weight control may be too high for long-term use.