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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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How cannabis may fuel pot belly
Mark Henderson The Times
Thursday 12 Apr 2001 CANNABIS users get hungry after taking the drug because its active ingredients mimic a brain chemical that is used to sharpen the appetite, scientists have discovered. Molecules known as cannabinoids - which occur naturally in the brain as well as in cannabis - play an important role in telling nerve cells to signal a feeling of hunger when blood sugar is low. Cannabinoids from the drug, however, are so similar to the natural versions that when they are added to the brain's chemical mix, they trick neurons into sending the same signals, provoking a hunger that has nothing to do with the body's need for food. The effects can be countermanded by a hormone, leptin, which is produced by fatty tissue and which works in the opposite way, suppressing appetite. A decrease in body fat and other energy reserves, which occurs after fasting or crashdieting, reduces the level of leptin, so food intake is stimulated. In the research, details of which are published today in Nature, Italian, American and Japanese scientists found that rats genetically engineered to lack cannabinoid function ate less than normal. The scientists, led by Vincenzo Di Marzo, also discovered that rats given leptin had reduced levels of endocannabinoids - the naturally occurring chemicals - in a part of the brain known as the hypothalmus, which is known to regulate appetite.
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