The consumption of fatty acids has increased drastically, exceeding the nutritional requirements of an individual and leading to numerous metabolic disorders. Recent data indicate a growing interest in using cannabidiol (CBD) as an agent with beneficial effects in the treatment of obesity. Therefore, our aim was to investigate the influence of chronic CBD administration on the n-6/n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) ratio in different lipid fractions, inflammatory pathway and oxidative stress parameters in the white and red gastrocnemius muscle. All the designed experiments were performed on Wistar rats fed a high-fat diet (HFD) or a standard rodent diet for seven weeks and subsequently injected with CBD (10 mg/kg once daily for two weeks) or its vehicle. Lipid content and oxidative stress parameters were assessed using gas-liquid chromatography (GLC), colorimetric and/or immunoenzymatic methods, respectively. The total expression of proteins of an inflammatory pathway was measured by Western blotting. Our results revealed that fatty acids (FAs) oversupply is associated with an increasing oxidative stress and inflammatory response, which results in an excessive accumulation of FAs, especially of n-6 PUFAs, in skeletal muscles. We showed that CBD significantly improved the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio and shifted the equilibrium towards anti-inflammatory n-3 PUFAs, particularly in the red gastrocnemius muscle. Additionally, CBD prevented generation of lipid peroxidation products and attenuated inflammatory response in both types of skeletal muscle. In summary, the results mentioned above indicate that CBD presents potential therapeutic properties with respect to the treatment of obesity and related disturbances.
Keywords: cannabidiol; cannabis; inflammation; insulin resistance; lipids; oxidative stress.