Anorexia Nervosa and Medical Cannabis – A Golden Spec in The Horizons of Medical Science

Every 1 in 200 girls is struggling with a known eating disorder, Anorexia Nervosa. The said condition comes with a complex plethora of psychological and physical symptoms. Most of the time, the condition is left undiagnosed and untreated. It might affect boys or men as well.

All Anorexia Nervosa types involve a mental state that convinces the patients to believe in an unreal perception of body weight. This makes them want to reduce weight. Anorexia nervosa can be addressed by using cannabis extracts. Stick around to learn how cannabis works to alleviate different anorexia nervosa types.

What is Anorexia Nervosa?

Anorexia nervosa is a serious mental condition accompanied by an eating disorder. People with the said disease are generally seen restricting their food intake to an abnormal extent that leads to dramatic weight loss and nutritional deficiencies. These physical and behavioral symptoms are driven by a mental state that involves intense fear of gaining weight and a distorted body image.

Mostly women and girls are affected by conditions as soon as they hit puberty. However, boys might also be affected at times. Stick around to learn more about anorexia nervosa types, symptoms, causes, and more.

Anorexia Nervosa Types:

Anorexia nervosa can be studied better if divided into several categories based on the behavioral symptoms of patients. Here’s a list of the main Anorexia Nervosa types:

1. Restricting Type

Patients going through the restrictive type of Anorexia Nervosa show behavioral symptoms that involve severe restrictions on their food intake. Patients strictly count their calories and consume strictly restricted diets only.

You’ll observe the patients skip their meals quite often. Another weird sign observed in some patients is that they only consume a certain type of food.

2. Binge Eating

Similar symptoms are observed in this type of patient as well. They intake a restricted number of calories and keep a strict check and balance on them. However, the difference is that the patients may consume an extra number of calories and later on compensate by purging the food. This is either done through misusing laxatives or vomiting the food.

3. Atypically Anorexia Nervosa

In addition to the main two types of Anorexia nervosa, there is another subtype called atypical anorexia nervosa. This type is characterized by an intense fear of weight gain and having a distorted body image. However, the patients still lie in a normal body weight range.

What are the causes of Anorexia Nervosa?

Intrigued by the curiosity to dwell into the causes of anorexia Nervosa, the experts deeply analyze various factors that might be responsible for it. The causes highly vary from social and environmental to genetic factors. Also, it’s believed that many people are more vulnerable to developing it due to certain personality traits. Falling factors may cause anorexia Nervosa:

1. Psychological factors:

Several psychological aspects of one’s personality can make you a patient of anorexia nervosa. Personality traits such as extreme levels of perfectionism and OCD can lead to the condition. Also, having low self-esteem and feeling extremely conscious about one’s looks can end up in Anorexia Nervosa. Sometimes mental disorders such as depression and anxiety play a significant role as potential causes of the said condition.

2. Environmental Factors:

Stressful life events, Relationship complications, and puberty can cause the condition.

3. Cultural factors.

One of the most common factors of Anorexia Nervosa is cultural pressure laid down by electronic media and print media. When young teenagers get impressed by social media models, they tend to fall prey to medical conditions such as anorexia nervosa.

4. Hereditary factors

At times genetic disposition can lead to anorexia nervosa that runs in families. If you have ever suffered from the condition, your kids might suffer from the condition as well.

5. Occupational factors

Occupational requirements can require extreme dietary restrictions in order to achieve a certain physique. People in these occupations generally get highly conscious of their physique.

Risk Factors for Anorexia Nervosa:

Certain factors make people more vulnerable to developing the condition. Gender is one of those factors. Several surveys reveal that girls and women are more potential victims of anorexia nervosa. They’re generally suppressed by cultural and environmental factors that pose certain beauty standards of looking lean and slim. This further leads to a fear of not matching this beauty standard. However, boys might also get affected by such growing social pressures and develop eating disorders.

Also, age can substantially affect your chances of developing the condition. Teenagers are more affected by anorexia nervosa, whereas people lying over the age of 40 hardly get to experience such conditions. The reason why teens are more vulnerable is related to the hormonal changes taking place in their bodies during puberty. Anxiety and depression can make people sensitive to the comments casually passed about body shape or weight.

• Genetics: Studies suggest that teenagers who have a first-degree relative with anorexia nervosa are at greater risk of developing the said condition. First-degree relative includes child, parent, or sibling.
• Extreme starvation: Extreme levels of starvation may induce several changes in the brain that can cause the symptoms of anorexia nervosa.

Symptoms Of Anorexia Nervosa:

Anorexia nervosa is generally accompanied by several kinds of symptoms and signs, all primarily connecting to starvation. Patients With anorexia nervosa go through emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms that can make them feel an unreal pressure of increasing body weight. They can have wrong perceptions about their weight, making them fearful of gaining weight and making them look fat.

Diagnosis of the said condition might be hard in most cases as the behavioral, emotional, and physical symptoms of the disease are easily disguisable. Most patients aren’t extremely thin, so it’s not easy to tell if someone has the disorder. Let’s dwell on the various categories of symptoms experienced by anorexia nervosa patients.

Physical symptoms

• Anorexia nervosa is characterized by drastic weight changes, either extreme weight loss or the inability to make expected weight development.
• Patients appear to be really thin
• Blood counts are abnormal
• Sleeping disorders
• Fatigue
• Frequent dizziness
• Discoloration of fingers that leads to a bluish appearance
• Hair fall
• Irregular menstrual cycle
• Downy hair on the whole body
• Abdominal pain and frequent constipation
• Intolerant to extreme weather
• Dry skin that looks yellow.
• Dwindling blood pressure
• Always feeling dehydrated
• Eroded teeth

Emotional and Behavioral Symptoms

Emotional and behavioral symptoms of Anorexia Nervosa are connected to the fear of gaining weight and constant attempts to lose weight to look attractive.

• Imposing severe restrictions on food intake by fasting or dieting.
• Exercising excessively, which may be harmful to the body.
• Getting rid of the food by self-induced vomiting
• Refusal to eat foods and skipping meals more frequently.
• Starving oneself even while feeling extremely hungry

Impact of Medical Cannabis On Anorexia Nervosa

Medical cannabis is a potential natural remedy being used to address several medical conditions, including eating disorders like anorexia nervosa. The cannabis plant is a widely used plant to come up with effective products to be applied in various areas of the medical arena.

The cannabis plant has a robust chemical makeup, with over one hundred cannabinoids and several terpenes having distinct properties. Analyzing different Anorexia Nervosa types and their symptoms, experts come up with several aspects of using cannabis for anorexia nervosa. Here’s how cannabis can help patients struggling with this condition.

• Improving mental health

Psychological aspects of the disease must be addressed in order to improve the condition of the patients. The physical symptoms are stemmed from a mental state that makes the patients conscious of their weight. Cannabis can directly address your mental disorders such as depression and anxiety. This way, it’s easier to get over the condition in the longer run.

• Increasing appetite

The cannabis plant has THC, which can induce strong physiological effects in the body. One of the most common effects is a potential increase in appetite.

Constant starvation can induce certain effects on the brain that may lead to loss of appetite. THC present in the cannabis plant can help improve appetite, which can, in turn, help the patients gain average weight.

Interestingly, the cannabis plant can stimulate the olfactory bulb receptors, which makes your food more appealing by enhancing your sense of smell and taste.

Anorexia Nervosa Treatment Goals: Research findings

Experts are on their toes to figure out exactly how cannabis can impact patients having anorexia Nervosa. The best part of using cannabis for anorexia Nervosa is that it can address various types of emotional, behavioral, and physical symptoms at the same time.

• A recent study focuses on the effects of cannabis and brings forth that it can support patients with their journey of regaining the lost weight. [1]
• Also, cannabis can help increase appetite by stimulating the sense of taste and smell. [2]

Final Thoughts:

A diligent insight into various aspects of treating Anorexia Nervosa types brings forth that cannabis can have a substantially positive impact on the condition of patients. Using cannabis for Anorexia Nervosa can help the patients deal with the symptoms by reducing their intensity.

References:

1. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eat.22173
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/nn.3647