Using marijuana appears to have a “positive outcome” on people struggling with some eating disorders, according to a new study.

“Cannabis is widely used by people with eating disorders and is widely perceived as beneficial in restrictive and food-averse, but not binge, eating disorder subtypes,” the paper, published in the Journal of Eating Disorders, found.

Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia surveyed more than 7,500 people with a diagnosed or self-reported eating disorder (ED), with more than 3,o00 of whom that used cannabis within the past year. Respondents represented 76 countries, with most residing in Australia (29.7 percent), the United Kingdom (21.7 percent) and the United States (17.6 percent).

“Cannabis received the highest mean ratings of any drug for improving ED symptoms” among people avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, anorexia nervosa and other specified feeding and eating disorder, the study found. People with unspecified feeding or eating disorder “also reported a favorable rating.”

For people with anorexia nervosa specifically, “cannabis use drove reductions in food-related anxiety and guilt, which, together with appetite stimulation, helped normalise their eating,” the study found. “The gastroprotective and antinausea properties of cannabis appear to provide additional therapeutic benefits over and above those provided by appetite stimulation and anxiety reduction.”

For people with avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), which involves a lack of desire to eat and aversions to food based on sensory factors such as texture, taste and smell, there is a “transformational effect of cannabis” related to “increased appetite and enhanced ability to recognise hunger cues,” the researchers wrote.

“The higher frequency of daily cannabis use amongst those with ARFID may well reflect self-medication for these therapeutic benefits,” they said. “Indeed, daily use of cannabis flower was generally associated with higher ED symptom improvement scores relative to intermittent use, suggesting that symptom improvement may drive frequency of use.”

In contrast, people with binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa, “provided lower ratings” for marijuana’s efficacy—perhaps because “the appetite-stimulating properties of THC may exacerbate binge/purge symptomatology,” the paper said.

When participants were prompted with open-ended questions, “general mental health was self-reported as improved by cannabis in most respondents regardless of diagnosis,” the researchers wrote. Participants also said cannabis helps with improved ability to eat, improved awareness of hunger cues, reduced guilt related to their eating disorder, less nausea and diminished food-related anxiety.

“Our findings suggest that cannabis is widely used by individuals with an ED or disordered eating and that naturalistic use of cannabis is self-reported as having a positive outcome on ED symptoms.”

That said, “a substantial number described mixed experiences of both improvement and exacerbation of ED symptoms,” the study found.

The research is a follow-up to an earlier paper that some of the same authors published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that marijuana and psychedelics were “the highest rated” drugs in effectively addressing eating disorder symptoms.

“Our top-level analysis indicated that cannabis was commonly used among respondents and was one of the few drugs rated positively for ED symptom improvement. In [anorexia nervosa], [avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder,], and [other specified deeding and eating disorder], this positive rating was superior to all prescription drugs.”

While daily use of marijuana flower specifically was more associated with improved eating disorder scores than intermittent use in the new study, symptom improvement didn’t vary overall based on cannabis product type or cannabinoid composition.

The researchers noted that the self-report and naturalistic nature of the study means that no strong causal conclusions can be drawn, saying that “future clinical trials of cannabis products are warranted in eating disorders.”

They also flagged concerns about cannabis dependence and “other adverse effects” of frequent use that some participants reported.

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Most people living with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who use cannabis say it has improved their quality of life, according to new survey data published in the journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids. More than half of respondents also said cannabis had helped them cut back on opioid painkillers.

Researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville, led by Naueen Chaudhry, surveyed 108 patients from the university’s IBD clinic. All had a history of cannabis use and had been diagnosed with either Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis – the two main forms of IBD, a condition that causes chronic inflammation of the gut and can bring on pain, nausea, weight loss and, in severe cases, surgery.

The anonymous 39-question survey found that 87.6% of respondents reported an improvement in their quality of life since using cannabis, and 61.3% said it had helped them live more independently. Over half (59%) believed cannabis use had reduced how much opioid medication they needed.

Anxiety, joint pain and nausea were the symptoms most commonly treated. Those who used cannabis daily or near-daily were more likely to report relief from nausea and vomiting (82.1%), joint pain (81%) and insomnia (80%) than less frequent users. Nearly 70% of participants used cannabis daily, and most described their use as medical rather than recreational.

The vast majority of respondents (88%) agreed that cannabis helps with IBD-related symptoms, and almost all (93 out of 94) who answered the question said they would recommend it to other IBD patients. Side effects were uncommon – just 9.1% of respondents reported any adverse effects from cannabis use, and only two people said they needed hospital treatment because of it.

Patients also appeared willing to be open with their doctors about cannabis use, with 89.5% saying they felt comfortable disclosing it to healthcare providers. However, only around a quarter said they had been counselled on possible interactions between cannabis and their other medications, a gap the researchers flagged as a priority for clinicians to address given the potential for cannabis to interact with drugs that affect liver enzyme activity.

The team also found that patients with a history of bowel surgery were far more likely to have used cannabis for more than five years and to use it at least weekly, though the researchers cautioned this doesn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship – patients with more severe disease may simply be more inclined to try cannabis over time.

The study authors described their work as a “stepping stone in bridging the knowledge gap” around cannabis use and IBD, and said the results could help doctors offer more informed guidance to patients considering it. However, they also noted some limitations to their work, including its small, single-centre sample and the fact that everyone surveyed was already a cannabis user, which could skew results towards more positive experiences.

The findings echo a 2025 study drawing on data from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry, which similarly found that people with IBD experienced sustained improvements in their health-related quality of life after using cannabis. The two studies add to a growing body of patient-reported evidence that cannabis may offer meaningful relief for a condition that remains difficult to manage with conventional treatment alone.

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A new study that aimed to assess how people living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) could benefit from medical cannabis has discovered positive results, with improvements observed across multiple measures over an 18-month period.

Published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, the research highlights how treatment with cannabis flowers, cannabis oils, or a combination of both was associated with meaningful and beneficial outcomes across multiple metrics.

Scientists from the Medical Cannabis Research Group at Imperial College, London, conducted the trial. The data was supplied by 130 patients who had been diagnosed with ASD, were already being treated with cannabis medicine, and who were registered on the UK Medical Cannabis Register (UKMCR).

Patients were assessed at the beginning of the study and at regular intervals over an 18-month period. The results showed that they experienced significant improvements in areas including quality of life, anxiety, and sleep.

ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is marked by challenges in social communication and interaction, alongside restricted and repeated behaviours. Patients can experience different symptoms, including but not limited to social communication and interaction difficulties, oversensitivity, being fixated on specific subjects and repeated behaviour patterns.

There are currently no recognised pharmaceutical treatments for ASD, although people living with the condition are often prescribed drugs such as antidepressants and stimulants for co-occurring conditions including ADHD and depression.

The treatments available for ASD are usually focused on the individual patient’s needs and rely heavily on therapy-based interventions that include behavioural, speech and language, and occupational therapies.

It is estimated that around 0.6% of the global population lives with ASD, and with the recent advancements in diagnosis techniques, such as the use of AI to scan facial expressions, this figure is rising.

People living with ASD are highly likely to experience other conditions alongside autism. Between 50 – 83% of people with ASD are thought to have to learn to cope with symptoms that often exacerbate their condition, including anxiety, sleep disorders, and depression.

Researchers on the study were not looking at cannabis as a cure or treatment for ASD itself, but rather an alternative treatment for the co-morbid conditions which often accompany it. Currently, many patients are prescribed drugs such as SSRIs and antipsychotics, which can cause unwanted side effects and are often poorly tolerated.

“ASD treatment does not seek to change the core features of the condition, but rather treat associated distressed behaviours or psychiatric conditions. There is a paucity of high-quality evidence on the efficacy of these therapies in ASD. Conventional pharmaceutical treatments may include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and atypical antipsychotics, such as risperidone and aripiprazole, which have shown to reduce some dimensions of symptoms associated with ASD,” the authors said.

To test the efficacy of cannabis for the treatment of co-occurring ASD symptoms, researchers assessed 130 patients who were living with ASD and who were registered on the UKMCR.

Participants completed an initial assessment at the beginning of the study in which they supplied details about their tobacco and alcohol use, cannabis status (if they used, didn’t use, or used to use it), amount of grey-market cannabis used and details about their current cannabis prescription. They were also asked to complete patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), which would evaluate their general anxiety level, sleep, and quality of life score, and asked to provide details on how their condition has changed (PGIC).

Across all recorded measures, patients’ scores were observed to increase from baseline all the way through to 18 months, apart from the PGIC score, which showed improvements from 1 month through to 18 months.

From the cohort, 25 participants reported adverse events (AEs), with most being classified as either mild or moderate. The most common adverse events were insomnia, dry mouth and lethargy.

Notably, the median daily THC dose increased nearly tenfold during the study period, from 20mg/day at baseline to 192.25mg/day at 18 months, suggesting dose escalation was required to maintain effects.

Researchers noted that cannabis medicine had a positive effect on the co-occurring symptoms experienced by participants in this study, but acknowledged the study’s limitations due to the lack of a control group.

“This case series explored the outcomes of autistic adults treated with CBMPs. The findings indicate that CBMPs were associated with improvements in anxiety, sleep quality, and health-related quality of life,” the authors said in their conclusion. “While a proportion (19.23%) of the cohort reported adverse events, the majority were mild or moderate. As an uncontrolled observational analysis, the study cannot establish causation; reported changes should be interpreted as temporal associations and not as evidence of a treatment effect.”

The findings add weight to those of other studies investigating how cannabis medicines can be used to assist those living with ASD, with results suggesting that it can be used for short-term relief and advising against long-term reliance on cannabis.

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