Do Cannabis and Psychedelics Help With Eating Disorder Symptoms? What Patients Say

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Eating disorders (EDs) are complex mental health conditions that are notoriously difficult to treat — and for many people, traditional medications haven’t always worked. A new international survey, however, sheds light on how people with eating disorders are using both prescription and nonprescription substances, and how they feel those substances affect their symptoms and overall mental health.

A team of investigators led by Sarah-Catherine Rodan, a Ph.D. student at the University of Sydney’s Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics, collected responses from 7,648 individuals worldwide who self-reported having an eating disorder or disordered eating between November 2022 and May 2023. Participants were primarily young women, with an average age of 24. Most respondents were from Australia, the U.K. or the U.S.

The survey asked participants to share their experiences over the past 12 months with various substances including prescription antidepressants, cannabis, psychedelics, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol and others, and rate whether each made their eating disorder symptoms better, helped their general mental health or caused unpleasant side effects.

A Closer Look at Diagnoses

The participants represented a wide range of eating disorders:

• 41% had anorexia nervosa
• 19% had bulimia nervosa
• 11% had binge-eating disorder
• 9% had avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)
• 38% had disordered eating but no formal diagnosis

The majority (nearly two-thirds) also reported having depression, and many had additional mental health diagnoses, making treatment more complex.

What Were the Findings?

Cannabis and psychedelics were among the few substances that people rated positively for directly helping with eating disorder symptoms. Respondents felt these substances may help ease the intensity of their struggles, including obsession with food, body image or binge-purge behaviors.

By contrast, alcohol, nicotine and tobacco were consistently rated as having the most negative effects, worsening both ED symptoms and mental health. This aligns with existing concerns about substance misuse being common — and often harmful — in the ED community.

Interestingly, many people still found prescription antidepressants helpful, though more so for general mental health (such as reducing anxiety or depression) than for eating disorder symptoms themselves. There were a few exceptions: fluoxetine (Prozac) was viewed as helpful by people with bulimia nervosa, and lisdexamfetamine (Vyvanse) showed benefit among those with binge-eating disorder. These medications already have U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for those specific conditions.

“These findings highlight an important pattern: with traditional medications often falling short in treating eating disorders directly, while many individuals are self-medicating with substances they perceive as helpful,” Rodan said. “This underlines the urgent need to better investigate these substances in rigorously controlled clinical trials.”

What Does This Mean for Patients?

This survey offers a unique look at what real people are experiencing — and trying — when it comes to managing their eating disorder symptoms. While cannabis and psychedelics are not approved treatments for eating disorders, the fact that patients report relief from them suggests a need for more formal research in this area. At the same time, the data reinforces caution around alcohol and nicotine, which appear to do more harm than good.

Prescription medications continue to play an important role for many patients, especially in supporting co-occurring mental health issues like depression and anxiety. However, Rodan and her team emphasize that more effective options are still needed specifically for ED symptoms.

“I hope this study gives a voice to people living with eating disorders, revealing that their often-stigmatized experiences with drugs might in fact have therapeutic potential,” Rodan said. “This should spur further research and open new treatment pathways for these challenging conditions.”