Abdominal Obesity and the Endocannabinoid System

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1. What is an Endocannabinoid (ECS) System?
2. How Cannabis Works

Could there be a substance that both gives us the munchies and can help combat obesity? There may indeed be, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Monell Center in Pennsylvania partnered with Kyushu University in Japan to study compounds called endocannabinoids. These occur naturally in our body and are similar to THC, the compound primarily responsible for marijuana’s psychoactive effects.

Researchers studied endocannabinoids in mice, and they say that the chemicals have a one-two punch—in your brain, they increase your appetite. And on your tongue, they enhance the response to sweet flavors. The compounds had no effect on salty, sour, bitter or umami tasting....read more articles

 

This internationally renowned author team provides a unique and thorough analysis and distillation of the endocannabinoid system and its relationship to abdominal obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The endocannabinoid system (ECS) plays an important role in cardiometabolic risk, as well as modulating energy balance, feeding behavior, hepatic lipogenesis, and perhaps glucose homeostasis. Evidence suggests that the ECS is overactive in human obesity and dyslipidemia.
Critical to the management of cardiometabolic risk, this new, timely book provides practical overviews and management guidance on many important topics, including:

• abdominal obesity and the metabolic syndrome
• the endocannabinoid system and energy balance: functions and dysfunctions
• abdominal obesity, the EC system, and cardiometabolic risk