Can CBD Oil make you gain weight?
26 September 2022Many people struggling with obesity will try (and often have tried) just about any diet, supplement, or even medication to lose weight. Trying to lose a few pounds can be a major challenge, however. Some scientists are convinced that CBD Oil can help people lose weight. And yet, some studies suggest that CBD can also make some people gain weight in certain cases. This blog explores the impact of CBD Oil on body weight, to find out whether it helps us lose weight or gain weight instead.
How Does CBD Oil Affect Body Weight?
What is the influence of CBD Oil on body weight? It turns out that this question is harder to answer than you might expect. On the one hand, research data suggests that CBD could help promote weight loss. CBD supplements have the potential to speed up metabolism and reduce appetite. On the other hand, however, some people indicate that their appetite actually increases after taking CBD Oil, causing them to gain weight instead.
CBD (cannabidiol) is a cannabinoid capable of affecting both our appetite and weight through its particular effects on our body and brain. We all have our own endocannabinoid system (ECS), an important part of our physical make-up tasked with regulating our internal balance, also known as homeostasis. The ECS responds to signals emitted by CB1 and CB2 receptors. Whereas CB1 receptors are located primarily in the central nervous system, CB2 receptors are closely linked to the immune system instead.
CBD, along with other cannabinoids, is capable of either activating or inhibiting these receptors. This enables it to increase or instead decrease production of neurotransmitters by relaying messages throughout the body. This is how CBD Oil can affect your mood, your sleep cycles, or your body’s natural defences, as well as your bowel health and digestion.
Strikingly, obese people have more CB1 receptors than others do. They are mainly concentrated in body fat tissue. This has led researchers to suspect a link between obesity and CB1 receptor activation. However, studying the exact relationship between CBD Oil and body mass has proven a challenging task, with some evidence suggesting it helps lose weight, and other studies pointing at weight gain instead.
Can CBD Oil help you control your body weight?
Body weight is determined by a wide range of different factors. These include age, level of physical activity, metabolic rate, medical conditions, genetic makeup, any medication you may be using, and dietary habits, obviously. Some studies seem to suggest that the potential of CBD Oil to affect digestion and appetite make it a natural candidate for helping us lose weight.
Accelerated digestion
Preliminary research results show potential for CBD to reduce cravings for food as well as the ability to speed up digestion. These capacities could each contribute to losing weight in their own way. A 2017 review demonstrated that cannabidiol can positively affect weight by interactions with CB1 and CB2 receptors. Scientists suspect that these receptors play an important part in regulating appetite and metabolism.
A subsequent rodent study also appears to indicate that CBD can contribute to weight loss rather than weight gain. For two weeks, rat subjects were given daily doses of either 2.5 or 5mg CBD per kilo of body weight. Both dosages causes weight loss, while the higher dose proved more effective. CBD was injected intravenously in this case, however, rather than administered orally.
Surely, these are encouraging results. However, we still have to wait for full-scale human clinical trials before jumping to conclusions about CBD Oil and weight gain or loss.
Increase of brown fatty tissue
CBD Oil could also help people lose weight by turning white fatty tissues (unhealthy fats) into brown fatty tissue (healthy fats). These brown fats are called healthy because they encourage the body to burn calories. White fats, by contrast, increase risk of of chronic conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Several studies support these claims. Researchers found that CBD influences how the body handles fat. This 2016 study demonstrated that CBD promotes transition from white fat into brown, as well as stimulating more efficient breakdown of fats throughout the body. The research team concluded that CBD Oil could help prevent obesity and weight gain by these qualities.
Can CBD Oil make you gain weight?
In spite of the positive potential for CBD Oil on weight loss, some evidence suggests it could also cause weight gain instead by increasing appetite. To find out more, researchers interviewed 117 parents whose children received CBD to treat epilepsy. While parents indicated that epilepsy symptoms decreased significantly, they noticed considerable increase in appetite among some 30% of the children involved.
Unfortunately, there is still some ambiguity in the results we have on how CBD Oil relates to weight gain. A three-month study among 23 children with Dravet’s syndrome, a form of epilepsy, involved dosages of up to 25mg CBD per kilo of body weight. This caused an increase in appetite in some children, while reducing it in others. A 2018 review collected data from 2,409 CBD Oil users, of which only 6.3% indicated noticing an increase in cravings for food.
Can you use CBD Oil to lose weight?
So what can we conclude on CBD Oil and weight gain or loss? There are many factors at play that codetermine our ability to reach or maintain healthy body weight. Moreover, much is still unknown about the exact effects of CBD Oil on body weight.
If you are considering trying CBD, and you worry about possible effects on your weight, don’t just dismiss CBD Oil for fear that you might gain weight. The level of uncertainty is far too high to avoid CBD for fear of gaining weight. Besides, everything you can try to lose weight has potential side-effects. Those commonly associated with CBD Oil are very mild, if they occur at all. If you start to use CBD Oil and notice an increase in appetite, you can always try lowering your dosage or stop using it temporarily.
Remember that CBD Oil could actually help you lose weight rather than gain it, due to its potential to lower appetite. CBD has other potential effects that can contribute to weight loss, too, including the capacity to help fight addictive behaviour. If you are prone to bingeing or have a constant craving for sugary foods, CBD Oil could help you lose weight rather than gain it.
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