Work the Hub: Obesity and the Cannabinoid System ~ A Publius Update

With a recent Gallup poll showing 58% of Americans support ending marijuana prohibition, Publius, pen name for The Cannabis Papers: A citizen's guide to cannabinoids (2011), notes the growing importance of any disconnect between our cannabinoid systems, healthcare, and what we weigh.

"When we were writing The Cannabis Papers," recalled Bryan W. Brickner (part of Publius), "we thought of the book as 36 spokes (chapters) with the Introduction and Potscript forming the hub of the wheel: the human cannabinoid system works in a similar manner."

"Body systems have to work together," continued Brickner. "Imagine the digestive, endocrine and circulatory systems all in need at once; since the cannabinoid system modulates all other systems in the body (it hears them, so to speak), it works as 'the hub' - a central part that energies radiate from - to balance our diet and health."

According to research, the cannabinoid system facilitates energy intake (diet) and enhances energy storage and expenditure by influencing lipid and glucose metabolism.

"With the 2011 publication of The Cannabis Papers," noted Brickner, "we knew what the science was saying - that our ignorance was hurting us - and that it impacted things like obesity. Now, two years later, in the midst of the Affordable Healthcare implementation, I think we'd all be healthier, wealthier and wiser if we took a look inside ourselves - at our hub - and start seeing the cannabinoids that are in all of us."

Brickner has a 1997 political science doctorate from Purdue University and is the author of several political theory books, to include The Promise Keepers (1999), Article the first of the Bill of Rights (2006), and The Book of the Is (2013).

The Cannabis Papers is available at online retailers and for free by download.