“If [three] components are there — good diet, proper sleep and regular exercise — then the immune system responds effectively to eliminate [danger] from the body. But adding cannabis, on top of a poor diet, makes a mess,” senior author of the new study, Ganesh Halade, professor of Internal Medicine at the University of South Florida, said in a press release.
Although cannabis has been legalized in 35 states, its cardiac effects among those consuming diets high in processed foods- or those rich in omega-6 oils- are not well-understood.
“I was reading the previous scientific literature and realized we have limited understanding of what cannabis is doing to the body at a molecular level. So I thought, ‘What is the impact of cannabis, where the American diet is already heavy on processed/packaged food? It is a real situation. And that is what we’re trying to address in this whole paper," said Halade.
In the study, researchers fed male mice either an omega-6-rich safflower oil diet or a control for four months. They then exposed the mice to smoke from a form of cannabis called hemp for 30 minutes twice daily over five days. While hemp contains non-psychoactive CBD, it contains extremely low amounts of psychoactive THC. Non-smoking mice were keptas controls. CBD and related compounds were measured in the mice's plasma, lungs, spleens, olfactory bulbs, and hearts.
Although cannabis smoke weakened cardiac strain, it also suppressed key molecules involved in resolving inflammation. Alone, the seed oil-based diet weakened anti-inflammatory responses, although smoking cannabis exacerbated this effect. The researchers additionally found that smoking cannabis increased immune cell activity and inflammatory markers.
“This study highlights the adverse effect of cannabis smoking on cardiac health, the immune defense system, and multi-organ lipid metabolism, thereby advancing immune suppression and chronic inflammation. Therefore, additional research is warranted for consideration of both dietary factors and cannabis administration,” concluded the researchers in their study.
Sources: EurekAlert, Life Sciences
