How Does Medical Marijuana Work For Weight Loss From Lack Of Hunger?

Even in an era of wafer thin models and Hollywood diets showing an emaciated look to be in style, there are disease states where lack of hunger and subsequent weight loss may be extremely disabling to patients.

I’m not referring to anorexia nervosa. Patients with anorexia still get hungry, they just ignore it to keep body weight low. What I’m discussing is patients who have a genuine absence of hunger and a loss of interest in food. Marijuana and THC may combat this problem very successfully.

The top two disease states causing the loss of hunger and lack of interest in food include Cancer and HIV / AIDS. Over fifty percent of cancer patients show a dramatic weight loss of lean body mass which can appear as wasting, or cachexia as it is called. The most common types of cancer leading to the wasting are prostate, pancreatic, and lung cancers. In addition to the disease itself causing anorexia, the harsh treatments for these cancers may decrease appetite and weight. Depression due to the disease may compound this weight loss.

AIDS patients may experience wasting as well. This can weaken one’s immune system, thereby increasing the chances for an opportunistic infection. AIDS itself decreases appetite, and the medications can cause a drastic loss of appetite too. Typical anti-retroviral medication treatments such as AZT may cause significant nausea. Successful HIV medications usually encompass a complicated cocktail of meds that may be nauseating.

THC may allow patients to gain forty to fifty pounds and make patients over three times more likely to stick with their anti-retroviral medication regimen. There are other AIDS side effects that are helped by marijuana including headaches, leg cramps, peripheral neuropathy, and pain.

If the patient develops an impaired immune system and mouth and throat ulcerations develop this may make eating difficult too.

Smoking marijuana has been shown to increase appetite. A study back in the 1980’s evaluated 6 men living in a lab and showed the ones who smoked true marijuana ate an extra 1000 calories more than the placebo group (Foltin et al 1988). The scientific reason has to do with the cannabinoid receptor CB1.

When people smoke marijuana, the effects can be felt fairly rapidly, within minutes. There is also synthetic THC available, called Marinol. This can help as well with decreasing nausea and allowing patients to add weight, or at least slow the loss.

Reasons for picking smoked marijuana over Marinol? Patients say that a single dose of marijuana may increase appetite, as opposed to Marinol potentially taking weeks before hunger is enhanced.