CBD as a Weight Loss Supplement

Post Date: 29th July 2021

CBD as a Weight Loss Supplement

Introduction

No one will argue that ‘obesity epidemic’ is one of the most consistently important issues faced by western culture of the 20^th and 21^st century, with figures estimating 33% increase of individuals recognised as clinically obese. Beyond the more skin-deep issues of appearance, body confidence and mental wellbeing, obesity puts individuals under a greater risk of developing serious illnesses such as high blood pressure, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes and cancer. Interestingly enough, many of which can be in part, combatted through the use of CBD Oil.

Weight Science

Discounting for the time being, specific medical issues that interfere with weight and metabolism, such as hormonal imbalances, thyroid problems, or the side effects of other medications for unrelated illnesses, which of course do play a role in a more complex system of physiological domino effects leading to weight gain and more specifically, the inability to remove bodily fat stores effectively.

On a fundamental level, the cause of weight gain is an imbalance between the calories an individual consumes and the calories they then expend in an equivalent time period. Effectively more fuel is going in than is being used, and so the body in its infinite wisdom assumes you need to store that as fat inside its fat cells.

This, coupled with a modern lifestyle of increased inactivity, lower quality food that is higher in sugar and less nutritious, creates a perfect storm for fat accumulation and ultimately, obesity.

How CBD Interacts with the body’s weight system

Initial research from animal trials suggests that use of CBD may reduce overall food intake and boost metabolism due to the way in which it interacts with the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the brains of mice. Those two receptors it is believed play important roles in metabolism and metabolic rate of food intake. In both studies on the same core research, “significant reductions in overall body weight were recorded, with then higher dose having the most pronounced effect”. More research in the near future should confirm the extent of these findings and the effects in human trials.

Fat ‘Browning’

Principally in our bodies there are two separate types of fat that exist in our bodies – referred to as ‘White’ & ‘Brown’ fats.

White fat is predominantly used for storing ‘energy’ long term for later use and padding our body parts and organs – no surprise that this is the problematic type of fat generally associated with those chronic illnesses.

Brown fat is a lipid form more rapidly and easily transformed and “burnt off” to generate body heat and usable energy by the body. Individuals considered a healthier weight tend to still have fat cushioning organs and so on, but this fat tends to be layers of brown fat, which is more compacted and spread throughout internal structures of the body.

Interestingly enough, white fat can be naturally converted to this brown fat by a consistent pattern of exercise, sufficient sleep, high protein diets and being exposed to significantly colder temperatures for an extended period of time. In addition to this common sense approach to living a generally healthier lifestyle, evidence suggests that CBD may boost the body’s process of transforming white fat to the less problematic brown fat.

It does so by two mechanisms. Firstly, CBD inhibits key proteins directly involved in lipogenesis (the generation of new fat cells. Secondly, CBD has been shown to actively stimulate the breakdown of existing fat, which the body metabolises from white adipose tissue to brown. In addition to this, a not unrelated effect of using CBD is the evidence that CBD boosts mitochondrial activity (the part in your cells that produce chemical energy from your fat stores) causing your body to burn a greater number of calories during the same amount of activity.