by Matthew Tyler Funk

Created on: November 03, 2010

Medical marijuana could be of great help to anyone suffering from anorexia primarily because of its tendency to increase a patient's appetite, and also because of its anti-anxiety affects.

For those struggling with an inability to maintain a healthy appetite, cannabis can be a real help in several ways. Most obviously, cannabis is a very potent appetite stimulator. It increases the rate of metabolism and causes the stomach to send "I'm hungry" signals to the brain sooner and more often. For most people, cannabis is such a powerful appetite stimulant that the rate which it increases metabolism is outpaced by the rate at which the person eats to satisfy an increased appetite.

Cannabis also possesses powerful anti-nausea effects. Those who are normally sickened by food for whatever reason may find themselves more able to eat without getting the urge to throw up.

Though commonly referred to as a drug, medical marijuana - or cannabis (a medically more appropriate term; the botanical name for the same plant) -  is really just a potent psychoactive and medicinal herb. It is among the safest and most potent medicinal herbs with wide availability all over the world. The bud of the female plant is the part of the plant containing the highest concentration of Tetrahydrocanabanol (THC), which is the primary medicinal compound, but by no means the only medicinally active compound in the plant. Varying strains of cannabis have varying levels of the different medicinal compounds, and can produce different medical effects. The buds are dried for storage and can be ingested with food or smoked in order to obtain the desired effects.

Cannabis can be a great medicinal tool for lessening and correcting our symptoms, but ultimately finding the cause of a disease, whether it's anorexia or anything else, is the only key to curing the disease entirely. If the anorexia is based in an eating disorder, it could be a socially imposed disease, where a person is trying to look a certain way because it's the way popular culture says they should look. In many cases this leads to people actually striving to be unhealthily skinny. The solution there is probably exposure to healthier alternative culture, which marijuana can be a part of, but only a part. Mainly the alternative culture must offer the affected person an alternative way of viewing their body so that they can feel comfortable in how their body looks when it is healthy.

Other times anorexia might be caused by the body's physical rejection of the often poisoned processed and/or factory farmed foods most of us ingest on a very regular basis. In this case, the body may be physically nauseated by the toxicity of the food. The obvious solution there is to begin eating better food if it is available. If not, maybe work towards growing your own non-toxic food.

In conclusion, medical cannabis can be a great solution for a wide range of symptoms, but it is only a treatment of symptoms and not a reliable cure to a wide range of illnesses. Medical cannabis can help us cope with the discomfort of a huge variety of illnesses, but in order to truly cure ourselves we must also identify the original source of the illness and reduce or eliminate our exposure to those things which are making us sick in the first place.

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