Could cannabis and psychedelics help treat eating disorders?
The Australian-led survey of 7600 self-selected respondents across 83 countries has revealed that cannabis and some psychedelic drugs, including 'magic mushrooms' and LSD, were the most effective among self-medicated, non-prescription drugs for alleviating symptoms associated with illnesses including anorexia nervosa, bulimia and binge eating.
Published in JAMA Network Open this week, the research has been led by PhD student Sarah-Catherine Rodan at the University of Sydney's Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics. Professor Iain McGregor, academic director of the Lambert Initiative, is senior author on the paper.
About 1 million Australians live with an eating disorder, and almost one-third of adolescents in this country engage in disordered eating in any given year, according to National Eating Disorders Collaboration. They are notoriously difficult to treat and, according to the Butterfly Foundation, have the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric disorders.
Rodan says the study found that beyond cannabis's reputation for stimulating appetite, it offered a variety of potential benefits to users suffering from illnesses such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder.
Loading
'Cannabis has mood-elevating, anxiety-reducing gastroprotective and anti-nausea properties,' she says. 'Patients with avoidant/restrictive feeding intake disorder and anorexia nervosa report symptoms of anxiety and related abdominal pain and nausea, which can reduce appetite and exacerbate disordered eating.
'Cannabis also has anxiolytic properties and may reduce food-related anxiety and guilt.'
The survey also investigated ways participants were ingesting drugs, which affected the positive or negative outcomes.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Age
2 hours ago
- The Age
The basic Aussie survival skill we forget as soon as we go overseas
Coming from temperate Melbourne, where the most exciting animal I'll ever see is a snake at the bottom of the garden (that's quite exciting, actually), I'll never get tired of seeing wild animals roam, especially when I'm in a different country. That's why, on a family holiday in Malaysia, the temptation to get up close to the family of long-haired macaques we spot in the Penang Botanic Gardens is irresistible. But when the matriarch bares her teeth, hisses and moves to attack, well, my partner jumps backwards so fast and my children bolt in terror in ways I've never seen before. We've read the signs at the entrance to the gardens that say not to feed the animals or have food out in the open, so while we duly put away our snacks, we forget the basic rule of survival: never get too close to the wildlife. Would I have approached the brown snake in my garden to get a selfie? No. So why did I think a macaque would be any different? While our encounter results in nothing more than a bruised ego, many Australians are not so lucky. Insurer World Travel Protection (WTP) says they deal with at least one animal bite or injury a day. You can be sure that if someone is calling their insurer, they're not concerned about injuries fixed with a dab of antiseptic and some plaster. Monkey and dog bites are some of the most common injuries resulting in insurance claims in Bali and other parts of Asia, and they both require treatment for rabies. Cats, squirrels, and even camels can also transmit rabies. Loading By the time symptoms appear – perhaps your hand is red, and you have a headache or feel feverish – it could be too late. 'Rabies risk is something we deal with often,' says Deb Harvey, of WTP. 'If you get bitten or scratched it's imperative you get the right treatment quickly.' Unfortunately, finding the correct treatment isn't always easy. 'We had a case where a man was bitten by a dog in Bali,' says Harvey. 'Because of supply issues, there was no immunoglobulin available locally. We had to fly him back to Australia for time-critical treatment.'
Sydney Morning Herald
2 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The basic Aussie survival skill we forget as soon as we go overseas
Coming from temperate Melbourne, where the most exciting animal I'll ever see is a snake at the bottom of the garden (that's quite exciting, actually), I'll never get tired of seeing wild animals roam, especially when I'm in a different country. That's why, on a family holiday in Malaysia, the temptation to get up close to the family of long-haired macaques we spot in the Penang Botanic Gardens is irresistible. But when the matriarch bares her teeth, hisses and moves to attack, well, my partner jumps backwards so fast and my children bolt in terror in ways I've never seen before. We've read the signs at the entrance to the gardens that say not to feed the animals or have food out in the open, so while we duly put away our snacks, we forget the basic rule of survival: never get too close to the wildlife. Would I have approached the brown snake in my garden to get a selfie? No. So why did I think a macaque would be any different? While our encounter results in nothing more than a bruised ego, many Australians are not so lucky. Insurer World Travel Protection (WTP) says they deal with at least one animal bite or injury a day. You can be sure that if someone is calling their insurer, they're not concerned about injuries fixed with a dab of antiseptic and some plaster. Monkey and dog bites are some of the most common injuries resulting in insurance claims in Bali and other parts of Asia, and they both require treatment for rabies. Cats, squirrels, and even camels can also transmit rabies. Loading By the time symptoms appear – perhaps your hand is red, and you have a headache or feel feverish – it could be too late. 'Rabies risk is something we deal with often,' says Deb Harvey, of WTP. 'If you get bitten or scratched it's imperative you get the right treatment quickly.' Unfortunately, finding the correct treatment isn't always easy. 'We had a case where a man was bitten by a dog in Bali,' says Harvey. 'Because of supply issues, there was no immunoglobulin available locally. We had to fly him back to Australia for time-critical treatment.'
The Age
8 hours ago
- The Age
Brace yourself for ‘giant hail' as storms increase along east coast
Hailstorms will become more frequent in Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra, and the size of the stones that the storms create will grow in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne as the climate warms over coming years, new modelling shows. With every degree the atmosphere warms, it can hold 7 per cent more moisture, creating more turbulent conditions and increasing the likelihood of damaging hailstorms, said Dr Tim Raupach, author of a paper on projected hail damage in major Australian cities. His modelling compared the historical incidence of hailstorms over the cities, with conditions expected in a scenario where the climate warms by 2.4 degrees by 2080. The result was that while there may be more hailstorms in Brisbane, the chances of 'giant hail' being produced became far higher in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. 'In the historical scenario, Melbourne would be expected to see a 100-millimetre hailstone – 10 centimetres – every 20 years, but in the future scenario, it would be expected to see one every three years,' said Raupach, whose paper was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. In Sydney and Canberra, as the atmosphere warmed, the chances of giant hail hitting the cities increased from every three years to every two years. Raupach, a researcher in atmospheric science at the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre, said the purpose of the study was to compare the two atmospheric eras to explore the potential impact of climate on hail. 'If we had all the computing power in the world, we'd run multiple simulations,' he said.
