J Korean Neuropsychiatr Assoc.  2020 Aug;59(3):260-267. 10.4306/jknpa.2020.59.3.260.

A Pilot Study on the Effect of Cannabis Extract on Weight Loss in Diet-induced Obese Mice

• Jang YJ
• Lim SW
• Woo SY
• Kim SY
• Kim DK

• KMID: 2506220
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4306/jknpa.2020.59.3.260

Abstract

Objectives
This study aimed to investigate the pharmacological effect of cannabis extract on weight loss in diet-induced obese mice.
Methods
A total of 12 C57BL/6 male mice (Orient Bio), aged 6 weeks, were fed a high-fat diet for 13 weeks to construct a diet-induced obesity model. During the following 5 weeks, diet-induced obese mice were daily administered cannabis extract or sesame seed oil orally along with the high-fat diet. The body weight of each subject was measured weekly. Venous blood was drawn for biochemistry, enzyme-linked immunoassay, and oral glucose tolerance test before and after treatment. Body fat was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, and the mesenteric adipose tissue was also measured after sacrifice. We used exact Wilcoxon’s two-sample analyses and generalized estimating equations to test the differences between the cannabis-treated group and control.
Results
There was significant weight loss (p=0.009) observed in the cannabis-treated mice compared to the control group after 5 weeks of treatment. High-fat diet-induced glucose intolerance in the cannabis-treated group was significantly ameliorated (p=0.032), whereas there were no profound differences between the two groups in terms of other physiological markers, including corticosterone level.
Conclusion
This study shows that orally administered cannabis extract had a pharmacological effect of weight loss in diet-induced obese mice. This weight loss might be attributed to an increase in energy expenditure and regulation of glucose homeostasis.

Keyword

Cannabis; Weight loss; Obesity; Diet-induced obese mouse; Glucose metabolism homeostasis