Worms (C. elegans type) become eager to eat high-calorie food after consuming cannabis, replicating the same behavioral pattern observed in humans, research published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology has revealed.
Cannabinoids do their job by interacting with so-called receptors – the proteins in the brain and nervous system. Some cannabinoids are naturally present in the body – that’s why these receptors exist - and they play an important role, including appetite regulation and even reproduction.
For the sake of science, researchers bathed worms in anandamide – a biological fluid that is considered to be a bodily-produced cannabinoid. After that, scientists observed the feeding of these worms and were able to document a stronger preference for high-calorie food.
Shawn Lockery, co-author of the study and a professor of biology and neuroscience at the University of Oregon, told British media: “this increase in existing preference is analogous to eating more of the foods you would crave anyway. It’s like choosing pizza versus oatmeal.”
However, the research was carried out not only to satiate scientists’ curiosity about the behavior of drugged worms. The paper alleges that this similarity between humans and worms can be used for medical purposes – the tiny mindless creatures will become a part of human drug testing.
As Lockery stated, “the fact that the human cannabinoid receptor gene is functional in C. elegans food-choice experiments sets the stage for rapid and inexpensive screening for drugs that target a wide variety of proteins involved in cannabinoid signaling and metabolism, with profound implications for human health.”