How can Marijuana Increase your Appetite?
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 about 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 diseases lead to 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
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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. For Nearest Weed Dispensary, refer to the net.
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 allow patients to put on weight, or at least slow the rate of
According to Dale H. Gieringer in his book Medical Marijuana Handbook he states, Marijuana is proven to be effective as an anti-nauseant and an appetite stimulant for people going through chemotherapy and as an analgesic for patients suffering from chronic pain (Gieringer, p. 39).
Sara is a thirty three year old lesbian black female. She reports that she was 5’9” in eighth grade and has always been larger than everyone. She also reports that her grandmother was present in her life and would control her diet with slim fast starting around eighth grade, and her brother lived with her as well. Sara has stated that growing up, she did not feel safe, and that there has been trauma causing her life struggles. Her close friend, Julie, reports that she is aware of Sara’s condition but only because she has brought it up when something apparent relates, but declines to discuss in any further detail. Julie states that it is hard to believe Sara is struggling with such a condition and for so long because
Anorexia Nervosa may be described directly as an eating disease classified by a deficit in weight, not being able to maintain weight appropriate for one’s height. Anorexia means loss of appetite while Anorexia Nervosa means a lack of appetite from nervous causes. Before the 1970s, most people never heard of Anorexia Nervosa. It was identified and named in the 1870s, before then people lived with this mental illness, not knowing what it was, or that they were even sick. It is a mental disorder, which distorts an individual’s perception of how they look. Looking in the mirror, they may see someone overweight
Eating disorders can be viewed as multi-determined disorders because there are many different factors that can play into a person developing an eating disorder. Each case is different and to get a clear picture of the disorder it must be looked at from numerous angles because often times it is a combination of different issues that contribute to someone developing an eating disorder.
THC and cancer- Tetrahydrocannabinol is believed to reduce side effects of chemotherapy like nausea and vomiting, in people with cancer. I also increase their appetite to eat. It does this by inhibiting cell cycle progression in cancer cells through Cdc2 directive. It keeps cells in G2-M phases of the cell cycle by down-regulation of Cdc2 (Caffarel et al., 2006:66). It causes an increase in ceramide synthesis which drives cell synthesis.
Marijuana has been proven to increase appetite which results in a weight gain for the person. For an AIDS patient, gaining weight not losing it is a main focus. In 1992, the FDA approved a pill form of THC called Marinol for AIDS patients who suffer from wasting. In a study of 139 people with AIDS, half of the people were given the Marinol and half were given a placebo. The Marinol significally improved the appetite in AIDS patients(Cowley and Hager 22). Gaining weight and keeping it on for AIDS patients is key in extending their lives. M...
Out of all mental illnesses found throughout the world, eating disorders have the highest mortality rate. Anorexia nervosa is one of the more common eating disorders found in society, along with bulimia nervosa. Despite having many definitions, anorexia nervosa is simply defined as the refusal to maintain a normal body weight (Michel, 2003). Anorexia nervosa is derived from two Latin words meaning “nervous inability to eat” (Frey, 2002). Although anorexics, those suffering from anorexia, have this “nervous inability to eat,” it does not mean that they do not have an appetite—anorexics literally starve themselves. They feel that they cannot trust or believe their perceptions of hunger and satiation (Abraham, 2008). Anorexics lose at least 15 percent of normal weight for height (Michel, 2003). This amount of weight loss is significant enough to cause malnutrition with impairment of normal bodily functions and rational thinking (Lucas, 2004). Anorexics have an unrealistic view of their bodies—they believe that they are overweight, even if the mirror and friends or family say otherwise. They often weigh themselves because they possess an irrational fear of gaining weight or becoming obese (Abraham, 2008). Many anorexics derive their own self-esteem and self-worth from body weight, size, and shape (“Body Image and Disordered Eating,” 2000). Obsession with becoming increasingly thinner and limiting food intake compromises the health of individuals suffering from anorexia. No matter the amount of weight they lose or how much their health is in jeopardy, anorexics will never be satisfied with their body and will continue to lose more weight.
Voltaire once said, “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.” This quote makes me remember that as much pleasure food may bring us, we should never forget that we need it to survive. I guess most of us don’t, but once again, I remembered there are some people that do. If we were to look at the world as a whole, we would realize that for every 100 teenage girls, 1 to 5 suffers from anorexia. As defined by the National Eating Disorders Association, “Anorexia Nervosa is a serious, potentially life-threatening eating disorder characterized by self-starvation and excessive weight loss.”
Anorexia Nervosa (AN) is an eating disorder with the highest mortality rate of any other mental disorder. The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders characterizes the disorder as “a relentless pursuit of thinness and unwillingness to maintain a normal or healthy body weight”. (2014) Individuals also experience a “distortion of body image, intense fear of gaining weight and extremely disturbed eating behavior.” (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Related Disorders, 2014) As a result, they experience complications physically, mentally and socially. About 80% of individuals with eating disorders suffer from cardiac complications with death due to arrhythmias being the most common cause. This paper will focus on the connection between AN and cardiovascular rhythm disturbances. Individuals with this disorder have an increased chance of sudden death due to cardiovascular abnormalities like bradycardia, myocardial modification including atrophy and refeeding syndrome. (Casiero & Frishman, 2006)
With the idea that without proper nutrients the body becomes very weak in mind, it is safe to say one is more susceptible to illness. Researchers are still working to discover more illnesses and diseases that are linked to eating disorders. According to the article Leukemia Linked to Eating Disorders, “The prevalence of leukemia among patients with eating disorders seems higher than that in the general population. We do not suggest that a specific relation exists between a type of eating disorder and a type of leukemia, but a protracted malnutrition state may affect general systems such as the immune system” (830-831). Although there is not a direct correlation between eating disorders and leukemia, the lack of nutrients can lead to malnutrition. When the body is weak, the immune system will weaken as well. A person is then more vulnerable to illness, or in this case leukemia.
...motherapy, Crohn’s disease, insomnia, glaucoma, epilepsy, migraines, lack of appetite, and arthritis. The effects on these medical issues after consumption reduce the feeling of anxiety and pain. The cannabinoids found in marijuana are scientifically proven to slow the growth of cancer cells.
Marijuana, also known as weed, is smoked for the high, as well as for “nausea, glaucoma, appetite simulations, mucous membrane inflammation, leprosy, fever, dandruff, hemorrhoids, obesity, asthma, urinary tract infections, cough, anorexia associated with weight loss in AIDS patients, pain, and multiple sclerosis” (“Marijuana Overview Information”). Medicines to treat some of the listed ailments have not been found as of, yet so patients are suffering from pain and ongoing symptoms from their disease or illness. The only treatment for some of these ongoing symptoms and pain is medical marijuana. This is why medical marijuana is being pushed to be legalized in America. The “high” that users get from smoking marijuana relieves pain for a short period of time. Dr. Mark Ware tested cannabis (mar...
This is desperately needed in modern medicine especially by cancer and aids patients to prevent them from literally wasting away. Many of these patients have indicated that no other remedy helps to stimulate the appetite as effectively as smoking a small quantity of marijuana. It was also noted that smoking the natural plant was significantly more effective than the chemically created, orally consumed, synthetic marijuana.
Death was very near to a girl named Patti, who suffered through anorexia for more than two years. She ate nothing but two cream-filled cookies a day for more than seven weeks. The first cookie was breakfast and lunch, and the second was for her main meal. When she decided that these two cookies had too much fat in them, she proceeded to scrape off the cream filling from both of the cookies to decrease her fat intake. But still that was too much fat, so she cut down to one cookie without the filling. She now gets fed intravenously in her arm to get nourishment in the hospital. She is being fed against her will to save her life. But of course not all cases of this disorder are quite as severe or dramatic as this, yet all cases should be helped, because they can take a...
How many of you can image being so hungry that you, didn’t have enough energy to talk or even walk? How many of you have went an entire day without eating and feeling like you were about to die?