Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. E-mail: jonathon. Here we investigated whether conditions that promote lipolysis can liberate THC from adipocytes to yield increased blood levels of THC. In vitro studies involved freshly isolated rat adipocytes that were incubated with THC before exposure to the lipolytic agent adrenocorticotrophic hormone ACTH.
Lipolysis promoted by ACTH or food deprivation was indexed by measurement of glycerol levels. The present study shows that lipolysis enhances the release of THC from fat stores back into blood. For example, THC accumulated in rodent gonadal fat at significantly higher concentrations than in other organs such as the liver, brain, lungs and other fatty tissue Rawitch et al.
Similarly in humans, THC was observed in fat biopsies up to 28 days following the final exposure to the drug Johansson et al. Under normal conditions, THC appears to passively diffuse from fat back into blood, thus explaining its long elimination half-life. However it is possible that under conditions of enhanced fat metabolism lipolysis , THC might be released from fat at much higher concentrations than normal. Interestingly, there have been anecdotal forensic reports of anomalously high levels of THC in post-mortem blood samples of victims of traumatic death such as drowning Collins et al.
We have also received recent anecdotal forensic reports of high THC levels in the blood of ex-cannabis users who have lost significant body weight immediately prior to test sampling. Stress and food deprivation FD are reliable promoters of lipolysis, and this can be largely ascribed to activation of the sympathetic nervous system Meisner and Carter, ; Palou et al.
Here we investigated whether conditions that promote lipolysis may cause THC to be released from adipocytes at a higher concentration than under normal, non-lipolytic conditions. A total of male Australian Albino Wistar AAW rats Animal Resource Centre, Perth, Australia were used for all experiments with a weight range of β g see figure legends for the weight ranges used for specific experiments.
