There’s a persistent rumor that claims CBD can be used to help with weight loss. Conversely, some people also fear that CBD may actually cause weight gain, and so they steer clear of it even though they’re interested in CBD’s beneficial effects on anxiety and sleep.
So, which is the truth? Can CBD help with weight loss, or are you more likely to gain a few pounds instead of losing them?
To sort out fact from fiction and get to the bottom of this issue once and for all, we asked Nick Cannady, Butler Hemp’s resident expert on the chemistry of CBD and its effects on our biology, to weigh in.
Is CBD good for weight loss?
Nick’s short answer is “maybe.”
He says, “At this point, we don’t have enough evidence from a scientific standpoint to make a claim one way or the other about CBD and weight loss or weight gain.”
Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop some CBD manufacturers from slapping weight loss terminology on their labels or selling products under the implication that they will help as an appetite suppressant or a fat burner.
Some anecdotal stories do point to people using CBD for weight loss alongside a healthy diet and exercise plan, and there are some chemical and biological explanations for why CBD may be helpful when paired with these tried-and-true techniques.
“But we don’t have any evidence that you’ll lose weight simply by introducing CBD to your routine without changing your diet and exercise habits.”
Similarly, we don’t have any reason to believe CBD would cause weight gain, either. Some people unfamiliar with the differences between CBD and marijuana products may assume CBD can cause the “munchies” effect like marijuana does, but this isn’t the case.
Nick emphasizes, “CBD will not stimulate your appetite or impair your judgment when it comes to making healthy decisions around food.”
Can you use CBD as part of a healthy weight loss plan?
Despite the lack of studies that have evaluated these effects, there are a few compelling facts that could explain why some people successfully use CBD to give their weight loss efforts a boost.
The body has receptors that interact with naturally produced neurotransmitters called endocannabinoids. This endocannabinoid system plays an important part in regulating other bodily systems, such as the ones responsible for hormone production, sleep, stress responses, appetite and food intake, glucose usage by the muscles, and the creation and transfer of lipids (fats) from the liver and fatty tissues distributed around the body. In other words, the endocannabinoid system has a direct effect on at least six different processes that contribute to metabolic health and weight management.
The reason phytocannabinoids — cannabinoids found in plants — such as CBD can reduce stress and regulate sleep so effectively is because they are chemically very similar to the endocannabinoids your body produces. They bind extremely well to the receptors in the endocannabinoid system and mimic the effects of your natural endocannabinoids.
If your normal endocannabinoid levels get thrown off — for example, by chronic stress, insomnia, inflammation, or other problems — replenishing them with phytocannabinoids like CBD can return homeostasis to the body and get your systems back on track.
If we take a look at the known effects of the endocannabinoid system on weight control, appetite, stress regulation, sleep, glucose metabolism, and lipid synthesis, it’s easy to see why restoring balance to this system could indeed help with weight loss.
After all, a healthy metabolism requires all of these elements to work together harmoniously and consistently. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight while sleep deprived and stressed out, for example, chances are you found it extremely difficult. Therefore, taking CBD to reduce anxiety, ease stress, and improve sleep quality alone could have beneficial effects on weight management.
If the CBD supplement also restores balance to the portions of the endocannabinoid system that deal with appetite, lipid formation, and glucose metabolism, it may have even more beneficial effects than we know at the moment. The problem is that not many studies — if any at all — have been done to prove these effects.
Scientists have established, however, that altering receptors in the endocannabinoid system can have powerful effects on many of the body’s systems. Though the following study deals with experimental techniques rather than general cannabinoid use, its findings are certainly interesting. Experimenters found that using a specific cannabinoid receptor blocker results in:
- Weight loss
- Higher HDL: HDL is commonly thought of as the “good” protective cholesterol. Having higher levels of HDL in proportion to triglycerides and total cholesterol may be an indication of cardiovascular health.
- Lower LDL: Having high LDL is believed to be a marker of arterial inflammation, and a potential indicator of the progression of heart disease. Since LDL is believed to be one of the body’s mechanisms for healing arterial damage, lowering your LDL levels may indicate that you’ve successfully lowered inflammation and other sources of damage.
- Lower leptin: Leptin is one of the hormones responsible for appetite regulation. In someone with a healthy metabolism, leptin signals satiety and tells the person to stop eating because they’re satisfied. However, some people develop a resistance to chronically high levels of leptin when their body fat levels remain too high, so they never get that signal of satisfaction and they always feel hungry. Lower leptin levels indicate that a person has successfully become more sensitive to leptin signaling, and so they’re likely to be more satisfied after eating and feel less gnawing hunger.
- Lower C-reactive protein: C-reactive protein, or CRP, is a blood marker doctors frequently use to measure inflammation within the body. Higher levels are highly correlated with heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions, so lowering CRP levels is an indication of better metabolic health.
Keep in mind, these results were obtained after scientists deliberately blocked one receptor within the endocannabinoid system. You likely won’t experience the same effects simply from using CBD as a supplement. But what this does highlight is how powerful the endocannabinoid system truly is for weight control and metabolic health. It’s possible CBD and other phytocannabinoid supplements have more far-reaching effects than we know at this point.
Nick says, “We have heard some anecdotes from users reporting a decrease in their A1C levels” — this is the blood marker that indicates the level of circulating blood sugar over the past few months — “after using CBD for some time.” Higher A1C levels are one of the criteria for diagnosing diabetes, so a reduction in A1C means these users have lowered their risk for diabetic complications in the future.
These anecdotes are certainly encouraging, and they allude to the fact that CBD could be improving metabolic markers, but we have no way, at this point, to prove that the CBD is what caused the improvement in A1C. It’s possible these users began using CBD at the same time they began a new exercise routine or changed something in their diets.
Therefore, as Nick insists, “These anecdotes don’t take the place of scientific studies and should not be used as evidence to market CBD as a weight loss product.”
The most we can say is this:
CBD definitively helps with stress and sleep quality. These are two very important factors to have under control if you’re trying to lose weight. So including CBD as part of your weight loss plan could give you a boost toward restoring balance to your bodily systems and getting to a point where your body can effectively shed fat.
Embarking on a new health routine? Choose high-quality CBD supplements without harmful additives.
When you’re trying to clean up your diet and eliminate the things that aren’t great for your health, the last thing you want to do is ingest a supplement with impurities and other contaminants. At Butler Hemp Co., we test every batch of our CBD products multiple times to ensure their purity and potency. Plus, we maintain CGMP compliance with all of our manufacturing processes, even though supplement companies aren’t usually held to these standards. The end result is a CBD product you can trust to support your health, not stand in the way of it.
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