Your first meal
Milk, running, company, fat
▶ Play this chapter The script
Every line as it is spoken in the film, in order.
This is what changed my mind about cannabis. Long before you ever try the plant, your body is already dosing you.
The first dose comes with your first meal. Breast milk carries 2-AG, one of your keys. Newborn mice that couldn't use it barely fed, stopped growing, and some even died.
You keep making these keys for the rest of your life, and you can make more. A long run is one way. After forty-five minutes, both of your endocannabinoid keys rise in your blood, and runners still felt the high when scientists artificially blocked their opioid receptors.
Time with people you love may raise these keys too. In mice, company raises anandamide in the brain's reward center. Block the lock there, and company stops being rewarding.
And your food supplies the raw material. Your keys are built from fat. In mice raised without enough omega-3s, the locks in the brain's mood centers stopped working.
Sources
Every claim in this chapter with its grade: E established · M emerging (one or two studies, or animals only) · F framework.
- MDi Marzo V et al. Trick or treat from food endocannabinoids? Nature 1998;396:636–7. (2-AG in human and bovine milk) link
- MFride E et al. Critical role of the endogenous cannabinoid system in mouse pup suckling and growth. Eur J Pharmacol 2001;419:207–14. link
- MSiebers M et al. Exercise-induced euphoria and anxiolysis do not depend on endogenous opioids in humans. Psychoneuroendocrinology 2021;126:105173. (63 people) link
- MFuss J et al. A runner’s high depends on cannabinoid receptors in mice. PNAS 2015;112:13105–8. link
- MWei D et al. Endocannabinoid signaling mediates oxytocin-driven social reward. PNAS 2015;112:14084–9. (mice) link
- MLafourcade M et al. Nutritional omega-3 deficiency abolishes endocannabinoid-mediated neuronal functions. Nat Neurosci 2011;14:345–50. (mice) link