| ▲ | bb88 2 days ago |
| You would think that's the mechanism, but there seems to be evidence that points to lower BMI with cannabis use. Mouse study: https://medschool.uci.edu/news/new-research-may-explain-why-... Human study: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/can.2024.0069 Many people might have removed alcohol intake with cannabis use, to reduce overall caloric intake. |
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| ▲ | gleenn 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Very interesting conclusion directly from the human study you linked: "Marijuana use is correlated with lower BMI. As legalization and prevalence of the drug in the U.S. increases, the prevalence of obesity may decline. However, clinicians should view this outcome along with the known health risks associated with marijuana use." |
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| ▲ | tapoxi 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Speaking from personal experience I went from a BMI of 24 (healthy) to a BMI of 31 (obese) because of daily cannabis use that gave me insane munchies. This may be genetic, I had friends that didn't get them nearly as badly as I did. (I have since quit weed and lost the weight.) |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ratelimitsteve a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | feeling like i need to throw my anecadata on here. i used cannabis daily and went from a BMI of 34 to 26. Turns out I like getting stoned on the exercise bike and just tracking my diet for a month pointed out a few big, easy wins that I took in order to get my daily calories below maintenance. |
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| ▲ | Sparkle-san 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I wonder if this is skewed by the states where marijuana was legal/more accessible during that time window. Colorado was the first state to legalize it and is also the state with the lowest BMI. |
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| ▲ | nidnogg a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It has to be said that Colorado is a state known for outdoors culture and people are naturally more inclined to be physically active with more exuberant nature outings nearby. | |
| ▲ | zoklet-enjoyer 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Washington was the first state to legalize because of the time difference | | |
| ▲ | MegaButts 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Wouldn't it be the opposite? 9 AM in Colorado is 8 AM in Washington. | | |
| ▲ | Sparkle-san 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Depending on the level of pedantry you want you could argue for either. Washington's measure went into effect first, on Dec 1st, 2013 while Colorado's went into effect on Jan 1st, 2014. Colorado opened retail shops that same day though while the first shops didn't open until July 2014 in Washington and they had a lot of initial issues around licensing leading to slower expansion. | | |
| ▲ | MegaButts 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure, but in reference to the comment "because of the time difference" it seems pretty obvious he was referring to time zones, not the dates the laws took effect. Anyway, it doesn't actually matter. Cheers. | | |
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| ▲ | blackjack_ 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I don't know why this isn't talked about that often, but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat. Which probably is part of the thing that leads to reduced BMI. |
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| ▲ | DontchaKnowit 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah in my experience real heavy users of weed don't get munchies anymore and actually just smoke instead of eat pretty frequently. Eating kinda kills your high. Source: was a burnout in college for 4 years | | |
| ▲ | bb88 2 days ago | parent [-] | | My personal hypothesis, is that cravings (drug, sugar, food, sex, alcohol, socializing, etc) fill a need for stimulation. Most people get that through maybe watching sports, reading books, or if you can, mental stimulation (math, science, programming, 3d printing, juggling, etc). Or maybe some combination of all of them. If you didn't have very many friends growing up, it felt agonizing with a deep desire to fit in -- that was the "social" craving kicking in early in life. Some of those cravings exist to extend life and to help the species multiply. Some of them were artificial (drugs, alcohol, gambling, computer gaming). GLP-1 agonists (wegovy, zepbound) are prescribed for certain addictions other than obesity. This shows that we don't understand addiction at all. | | |
| ▲ | AbstractH24 a day ago | parent [-] | | My wife is, in clinical terms, morbidly obese and, since the pandemic, has become more and more reliant on weed to cope with stress. While Wegovy hasn't helped her lose significant weight or meaningfully enough reduced her reliance on food to deal with stress (yes, she vomits a lot), she has stopped smoking weed. She claims quitting weed has nothing to do with the Wegovy, but before starting it, she wouldn't even acknowledge it was a problem. |
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| ▲ | aurareturn 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat.
A negative side effect of weed abuse is that you get so dependent on it, you have no appetite to eat unless you're high. | |
| ▲ | mock-possum 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I don't know why this isn't talked about that often, but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat. As someone with a pretty drug-friendly friend group… I’m surprised to hear that happens ‘a lot’ because I have never heard of that, or experienced it myself. In my experience, you eat food because it tastes good - and while being stoned might make some foods more satisfying texturally (ice cream when you have cotton mouth is rad) or lower your inhibition to try weird stuff, or to alter your perception in a way that exposes you to new avenues to appreciating familiar foods - I really can’t imagine that not transferring to being sober. Peanut butter and pickles still taste good sober, even if you develop an appreciation for them while stoned. Are you saying a lot of people just stop experiencing hunger? Like does their stomach not growl and feel empty unless they’re high? Really having trouble thinking of what you could be describing, and squaring jt with what I know. | | |
| ▲ | bb88 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a pretty common mechanism in humans to replace one craving with another. AA (e.g.) doesn't necessarily care if you have a two pack a day smoking addiction -- that's not what they're "optimizing" for. > Are you saying a lot of people just stop experiencing hunger? Like does their stomach not growl and feel empty unless they’re high? I think maybe a better way is to understand what the best solutions are. Right now it seems to be replacing one craving with another. People who stop cigarette smoking often gain weight -- that's been well documented for decades now. Knowing that, is type 2 diabetes better or worse than smoking and risking lung cancer? People who run get a lot of endorphins from the exercise. People who haven't run and start running get a lot of pain from it at first. Maybe after a few months they get endorphins. GLP-1 agonists (wegovy, zepbound) do reduce food cravings, but they also are being studied for alcoholism. I've heard it could affect gambling addiction as well. The real question is, why would a GLP-1 agonist affect a gambling addiction at all? | |
| ▲ | hattmall 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Are they drug friendly, or are they stoners? In my experience it's not so much needing to be high to eat as it is the craving to get high outweighs that for food, then when you get high you forget to eat. Then when it begins to wear off all the hunger hits you and you eat a whole pizza and a bag of Doritos right before falling asleep. When the first thing on your mind when you wake up is smoking weed and that's your primary activity throughout the day, food just becomes secondary, so the idea of eating without smoking first is just not realistic. | |
| ▲ | xenobeb 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | I have never heard of this but cannabis has a powerful effect on ghrelin. It wouldn't be shocking that at extreme use ghrelin stops acting without stimulation from cannabis. The problem with discussion on these things is everything is dose dependent. If you drink a glass of wine once a month the state of the extreme alcoholic is not going to line up with your experience from "drinking alcohol." |
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| ▲ | euroderf 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| > Many people might have removed alcohol intake with cannabis use, to reduce overall caloric intake. A regular topic of conversation at college (in the 70s!) was, if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one - demon rum or the evil weed - which would you choose ? |
