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You don’t have to worry that using chronic cannabis is going to make you gain a lot of unnecessary weight. The exact opposite may be true.

If using cannabis gives you the munchies then why aren’t cannabis users gaining weight and why have they been shown to have better gut health?

Keeping your weight under control as you age is difficult. The average person gains somewhere between one to seven pounds a year. After 20 years that’s a lot of extra weight to contend with but interestingly people who smoke cannabis regularly maintain stable body weights. Their BMIs are lower. They don’t have this obesity as they age that we see in the rest of the population. At least in large part.

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We’re not sure why that is. It might just be because they can get dopamine, and serotonin, and gabapentin, and norepinephrine from things besides a cupcake but it might be more complicated than that.

GUT BACTERIA AND CANNABIS USE

The microbiome may actually be the culprit here. In lab mice exposed to THC, one particular bacteria grows a little more than other bacteria. It’s akkermansia muciniphila. Akkermansia muciniphila is a gut bacteria that produces mucous. Mucous in the gut is critical to protecting the cells in the gut lining but there’s also a question that akkermansia muciniphila may impact the way extra calories are stored as fat.

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Very early, very interesting research in a rat model but nevertheless you don’t have to worry that using chronic cannabis is going to make you gain a lot of unnecessary weight. The exact opposite may be true. The mechanisms will be cleared up soon.

This post originally appeared on CBD & Cannabis Info.

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