Trying to lose weight, but you’re stuck at a plateau? Researchers Yann Le Strat and Bernard Le Foll from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research suggest that regular cannabis use may be the ultimate way to prevent weight gain.
Some point to the similarities between the runner’s high (which is all about the endocannabinoids) and the THC buzz as to why cannabis works to maintain a healthy weight.
“When you have runner’s high, you have feelings very similar to those you would feel if you were smoking marijuana: sedation, analgesia, mild happiness, the loss of the sensation of time and a loss of worries. The neurotransmitter system that marijuana hijacks is the cannabinoid system,” says Dr. Arne Dietrich, a cognitive neuroscientist at the American University of Beirut told Runner’s World.
Yet, what the data that Le Strat and Le Foll have pulled together demonstrate is that consuming cannabis three times a week is more likely to result in healthy weight levels than not consuming the herb at all. According to the study, the prevalence of obesity for participants who used cannabis three times a week was 14.3 percent, whereas the group who didn’t use the herb at all had a prevalence rate of 22 percent.
“This cross-sectional analysis indicated that despite the evidence that cannabis use stimulates appetite in clinical trials and laboratory studies, cannabis users are actually less likely to be obese than nonusers in the general population.”
Read the full study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology entitled “Obesity and Cannabis Use: Results From 2 Representative National Surveys”.