April 2021
Jiaqing Zhu, Juanjuan Yi, Qiaozhen Kang, Jinyong Huang, Yan Cuic, Guojun Zhang, Zongzhen Wang, Liming Zhang, Zhiqiang Zheng, Jike Lu, Limin Hao

 

Abstract

To explore novel sources of anti-fatigue drugs and food, the anti-fatigue activity of hemp leaves water extract (HLWE) was investigated through exhaustive swimming tests of mice.

The median exhaustion swimming time of mice gavaged with HLWE reached 55.4 min, which was 156.8% and 87.8% longer than that of the control group and Rhodiola group, respectively.

Then, several biochemical parameters related to fatigue were determined to explore the possible anti-fatigue reasons. The blood lactic acid concentration of mice in HLWE group was 0.76 mmol/L, which was 24.8% lower than that in the control group.

Compared with the control group, the glutathione peroxidases activity of mice in HLWE group increased by 296.2%. Based on the results, HLWE exhibited outstanding anti-fatigue activity through reducing the accumulation of lactic acid and improving the activities of defense antioxidant enzymes.

It shows appealing potential for development and utilization as novel anti-fatigue food or drugs.

 

Background

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.), an industrial plant belonging to the cannabaceae family, has been cultivated as an important source of food, fiber, oil and medicine (non-drug varieties) since ancient times (Russo, 2007). During the centuries 16th and 18th, hemp was one of the most important ancient crops for fiber production (Bennet et al., 2006). With the rapid development of modern petroleum and chemical industry, its usage was gradually declined. However, there are growing interests in hemp

 

Materials

Hemp leaves and Morchella esculenta were harvested from Xishuangbanna of Yunnan (China). Rhodiola (Nordic), 0.28 g per capsule, were purchased from Tibet Rhodiola Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (China).

Mice (specific pathogen free, SPF) used in this study were purchased from the Research institute of comparative medicine of Yangzhou University (Yangzhou, China). They were 5-weeks old and the body weights were 22 ± 3 g. All mice were treated according to the regulations for animal experimentation

Acute toxicity test of HLWE

To evaluate the acute toxicity and safety of HLWE, the death rate and weight changes of mice during the administration process were recorded. Mice administrated with concentrated FBM were considered as the control group in this section. As shown in Table 1, weight of male mice administrated with concentrated FBM increased to 35.6 g, suggesting a normal growth during the administration process. Both male and female mice administrated with concentrated HLWE showed a normal growth and the death

 

Conclusion

Gavaged with hemp leaves water extract in mice could regulate the lactic acid metabolism, reduce the accumulation of lactic acid in blood and thus delay the occurrence of fatigue or accelerate the recovery from fatigue. Through improving the activities of defense antioxidant enzymes, it could reduce reactive oxygen species to prevent irreversible tissues damage and thus help to fight against fatigue. It was speculated that polysaccharides, cannabinols, flavonoids and terpenoids in hemp leaves

CrediT authorship contribution statement Jiaqing Zhu: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - original draft. Juanjuan Yi: Data curation, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - original draft. Qiaozhen Kang: Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Validation, Writing - review & editing. Jinyong Huang: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Yan Cui: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing - review & editing. Guojun Zhang: Formal analysis, Resources, Supervision, Writing -

 

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

 

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81870093, 31900296), the Research Project of People's Liberation Army (BX115C007, BFP20C006), the Special Subject Funding of Zhengzhou University and the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province for Outstanding Youth (202300410365).