Protective Effect of Cannabidiol on Hydrogen Peroxide-Induced Oxidative Damage in Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs)

Natural antioxidants play an important role in promoting good health because of their prevention for oxidative damage. The work aimed to explore the antioxidant mechanism and activity of cannabidiol (CBD) at the cellular level. The human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) with oxidative damage was employed as the model to study the protective capability of CBD. The results showed that CBD pre-treatment before the cells were exposed to hydrogen peroxide (H₂ O₂ ) resulted in an obvious increase of cell viability (about 100 %) and antioxidant related enzymes activity, and a decline of malondialdehyde (MDA) level. Besides, CBD could alleviate the increase of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) content, the contraction of nucleus, and condensation of chromatin. The changes showed a dose-dependent effect. Additionally, the free radicals scavenging capacity of CBD was comparable to that of typical natural antioxidant, anthocyanidins. In summary, CBD could be employed as a potent antioxidant source for avoiding the oxidative damage. These results could provide the foundation for the development of CBD antioxidant products.