Cannabidiol in Regulating Eating Disorder Symptoms in Anorexia Nervosa: Safety, Pharmacokinetics, and Symptom Change
July 23, 2026
At the July CMCR Investigators’ Meeting, Guido Frank, MD, Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, presented findings from a CMCR-funded pilot clinical trial evaluating cannabidiol (CBD) as a potential treatment for anorexia nervosa (AN). He framed the study within decades of research suggesting that AN is driven not only by restrictive eating, but also by persistent anxiety, altered reward processing, and disturbances in brain metabolism that contribute to relapse.
Dr. Frank reviewed evidence that the endocannabinoid system helps regulate anxiety, stress responses, and feeding behavior, providing the rationale for studying CBD as a non-intoxicating therapeutic option. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 32 adult women with AN or atypical AN received escalating doses of CBD or placebo over three weeks. CBD was well tolerated, demonstrated predictable pharmacokinetics, and produced no significant safety concerns.
Although the study was small, participants receiving CBD experienced modest but statistically significant improvements in body mass index and several measures of eating disorder psychopathology, including reductions in shape concern, food restriction, and state anxiety. Dr. Frank emphasized that these preliminary findings support larger clinical trials to determine whether CBD may serve as a safe adjunctive treatment for AN.
In closing, Dr. Frank discussed complementary research investigating ketogenic therapy as another biologically targeted intervention. He proposed that altered brain energy metabolism may contribute to AN and presented early evidence suggesting nutritional ketosis may reduce anxiety and improve eating disorder symptoms. Together, these lines of research illustrate a shift toward treatments that target the underlying neurobiology of anorexia nervosa rather than its behavioral symptoms alone.
Guido Frank, MD is a board-certified adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. His research focuses on developing translational models that bridge clinical presentation with neuroscience to advance more effective treatments for eating disorders. Dr. Frank pioneered the application of computational model-based neuroimaging in the field of eating disorders and has used multimodal neuroimaging to develop models linking anxiety-related traits with eating disorder behaviors. More recently, his research has focused on investigating biologically based interventions to improve the treatment of eating disorders.