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Comment by bb88 | Hacker News Reader

> The researchers found that new cases of diabetes were significantly higher in the cannabis group (1,937; 2.2%) compared to the healthy group (518; 0.6%).

We know there's a path from obesity to diabetes. I think it would be interesting to see if there's a path from cannabis to obesity.

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> a path from cannabis to obesity

I believe the technical term is "the munchies"

Also "couch lock", i.e., reduced physical activity.

I actually would like to see a study about this. I am starting to think that the stereotype of lethargic potheads chilling on a couch comes mostly from portrayals in movies. Anecdotally, I encounter many people casually using cannabis while engaged in varying levels of physical activity, ranging from just hanging out in the city, to going on hikes, to outright partying or dancing late into the night. I even heard a couple folks use it as a "pre-workout" for long runs or lifting.

I'm sure it depends on the dosage, but the relationship between usage and physical activity seems to be more nuanced than is generally understood.

It's shockingly accurate. Sure people get high and do other stuff but the amount of people just sitting on couches passing weed around for hours is huge.

This poses a confirmation bias issue though, no? People obviously taking marijuana and sitting around: something you look for because of the stereotype/expectation, and relatively obvious if you’re around them. People doing activities not stereotypically associated with marijuana: less obvious.

Unless they are publicly consuming it (which I suspect is a bit rarer due to restrictions on and stigma about consumption in public), how would you count people who aren’t engaging in expected stoner behavior?

I don’t have a dog in this fight or suspected conclusion. Just seems like it might be harder than you think to truthfully assert “everyone knows most people who take pot just sit around”.

How does it compare to the number of people just sitting on couches doing things other than smoking marijuana, and how are we comparing?

pre-workout gummy enjoyer checking in

Which is interesting to me because, ironically, I use sativa strains to (very successfully) overcome ASD-related social anxiety so that I can go rock climbing in a gym. I use sedating indicas for the evening wind-down and sleep.

You would think that's the mechanism, but there seems to be evidence that points to lower BMI with cannabis use.

Mouse study: https://medschool.uci.edu/news/new-research-may-explain-why-...

Human study: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/can.2024.0069

Many people might have removed alcohol intake with cannabis use, to reduce overall caloric intake.

I don't know why this isn't talked about that often, but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat. Which probably is part of the thing that leads to reduced BMI.

Yeah in my experience real heavy users of weed don't get munchies anymore and actually just smoke instead of eat pretty frequently. Eating kinda kills your high.

Source: was a burnout in college for 4 years

My personal hypothesis, is that cravings (drug, sugar, food, sex, alcohol, socializing, etc) fill a need for stimulation. Most people get that through maybe watching sports, reading books, or if you can, mental stimulation (math, science, programming, 3d printing, juggling, etc). Or maybe some combination of all of them. If you didn't have very many friends growing up, it felt agonizing with a deep desire to fit in -- that was the "social" craving kicking in early in life.

Some of those cravings exist to extend life and to help the species multiply. Some of them were artificial (drugs, alcohol, gambling, computer gaming).

GLP-1 agonists (wegovy, zepbound) are prescribed for certain addictions other than obesity. This shows that we don't understand addiction at all.

My wife is, in clinical terms, morbidly obese and, since the pandemic, has become more and more reliant on weed to cope with stress.

While Wegovy hasn't helped her lose significant weight or meaningfully enough reduced her reliance on food to deal with stress (yes, she vomits a lot), she has stopped smoking weed.

She claims quitting weed has nothing to do with the Wegovy, but before starting it, she wouldn't even acknowledge it was a problem.

> I don't know why this isn't talked about that often, but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat.

As someone with a pretty drug-friendly friend group… I’m surprised to hear that happens ‘a lot’ because I have never heard of that, or experienced it myself.

In my experience, you eat food because it tastes good - and while being stoned might make some foods more satisfying texturally (ice cream when you have cotton mouth is rad) or lower your inhibition to try weird stuff, or to alter your perception in a way that exposes you to new avenues to appreciating familiar foods - I really can’t imagine that not transferring to being sober. Peanut butter and pickles still taste good sober, even if you develop an appreciation for them while stoned.

Are you saying a lot of people just stop experiencing hunger? Like does their stomach not growl and feel empty unless they’re high? Really having trouble thinking of what you could be describing, and squaring jt with what I know.

It's a pretty common mechanism in humans to replace one craving with another. AA (e.g.) doesn't necessarily care if you have a two pack a day smoking addiction -- that's not what they're "optimizing" for.

> Are you saying a lot of people just stop experiencing hunger? Like does their stomach not growl and feel empty unless they’re high?

I think maybe a better way is to understand what the best solutions are. Right now it seems to be replacing one craving with another. People who stop cigarette smoking often gain weight -- that's been well documented for decades now. Knowing that, is type 2 diabetes better or worse than smoking and risking lung cancer?

People who run get a lot of endorphins from the exercise. People who haven't run and start running get a lot of pain from it at first. Maybe after a few months they get endorphins.

GLP-1 agonists (wegovy, zepbound) do reduce food cravings, but they also are being studied for alcoholism. I've heard it could affect gambling addiction as well. The real question is, why would a GLP-1 agonist affect a gambling addiction at all?

Are they drug friendly, or are they stoners? In my experience it's not so much needing to be high to eat as it is the craving to get high outweighs that for food, then when you get high you forget to eat. Then when it begins to wear off all the hunger hits you and you eat a whole pizza and a bag of Doritos right before falling asleep.

When the first thing on your mind when you wake up is smoking weed and that's your primary activity throughout the day, food just becomes secondary, so the idea of eating without smoking first is just not realistic.

I have never heard of this but cannabis has a powerful effect on ghrelin.

It wouldn't be shocking that at extreme use ghrelin stops acting without stimulation from cannabis.

The problem with discussion on these things is everything is dose dependent.

If you drink a glass of wine once a month the state of the extreme alcoholic is not going to line up with your experience from "drinking alcohol."

  but a lot of people who smoke weed end up needing to smoke weed to be able to eat.

A negative side effect of weed abuse is that you get so dependent on it, you have no appetite to eat unless you're high.

I wonder if this is skewed by the states where marijuana was legal/more accessible during that time window. Colorado was the first state to legalize it and is also the state with the lowest BMI.

Washington was the first state to legalize because of the time difference

Wouldn't it be the opposite? 9 AM in Colorado is 8 AM in Washington.

Depending on the level of pedantry you want you could argue for either. Washington's measure went into effect first, on Dec 1st, 2013 while Colorado's went into effect on Jan 1st, 2014. Colorado opened retail shops that same day though while the first shops didn't open until July 2014 in Washington and they had a lot of initial issues around licensing leading to slower expansion.

Sure, but in reference to the comment "because of the time difference" it seems pretty obvious he was referring to time zones, not the dates the laws took effect.

Anyway, it doesn't actually matter. Cheers.

I'm saying polls closed sooner. Haha yeah I know it doesn't matter

It has to be said that Colorado is a state known for outdoors culture and people are naturally more inclined to be physically active with more exuberant nature outings nearby.

Speaking from personal experience I went from a BMI of 24 (healthy) to a BMI of 31 (obese) because of daily cannabis use that gave me insane munchies.

This may be genetic, I had friends that didn't get them nearly as badly as I did.

(I have since quit weed and lost the weight.)

feeling like i need to throw my anecadata on here. i used cannabis daily and went from a BMI of 34 to 26. Turns out I like getting stoned on the exercise bike and just tracking my diet for a month pointed out a few big, easy wins that I took in order to get my daily calories below maintenance.

Very interesting conclusion directly from the human study you linked: "Marijuana use is correlated with lower BMI. As legalization and prevalence of the drug in the U.S. increases, the prevalence of obesity may decline. However, clinicians should view this outcome along with the known health risks associated with marijuana use."

> Many people might have removed alcohol intake with cannabis use, to reduce overall caloric intake.

A regular topic of conversation at college (in the 70s!) was, if you were stranded on a desert island and could only have one - demon rum or the evil weed - which would you choose ?

There’s also something to cannabis potentially messing with your metabolism because anecdotally potheads usually aren’t particularly fat.

Could be, but from my own (and witnessing some others similar experiences) anecdotical evidence I think it's something else, more complicated.

Maybe related to the large and fast swings in blood sugar energy drinks, or other strongly sweetened sodas produce.

"The munchies" is what comes after, sometimes, but not at all necessarily. Depending on the composition of the stuff, I don't get them at all, and have to remind myself to eat and drink. Sometimes for days after.

What I always do is to ingest some grape sugar like https://dextro-energy.com/en/products/cube-classic before using any THC, no matter which form.

Because when I'm not doing that, I tend to get at least a strong fit of hiccups, but more likely a case of cannabis induced emesis and dizziness.

That OFC sucks.

IF prophylactically countered by using some sort of grape-sugary thing right before THC use, that never ever happens to me. And some others neither.

So what I'm saying is, independently of "the munchies" which come after using anything THCish, it does something to your blood-sugar, fast.

At least for some people, with certain metabolic settings.

Used repeatedly, over longer timeframes, I wouldn't be surprised that this is causing some maladaption, leading to some form diabetes.

Again, indepent of "munchies", or not.

This should be nothing new, because I didn't discover this by myself, but got it as a tip by experienced users, almost 40 years ago.

edit: maybe some form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypoglycemia

>I believe the technical term is "the munchies"

Needs to be more Latin for academia to accept it.

In all seriousness, though, the common thread is a need for coping mechanisms and lacking healthy ones.

Appetitus Cannabinicus.

The munchies eventually go away if you use THC on a daily basis, some users actually end up needing THC to be able to eat normally.

I always wonder about connection and correlation in these studies. Does the cannabis do something to the body to cause diabetes or is the type of person who would indulge in cannabis also the type of person that would indulge in some cake?

You can easily eat entire cakes every single day if you are high all the time.

Doesn't it boost appetite? It's traditionally fed to underweight kids in india.

Or a path from cannabis to diabetes such as declined insulin production

Part of research work is removing extraneous variables.

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