The Entourage Effect. It is not, as you may assume, the misery caused by an awful television program about the struggles of unpleasant rich white men with boats.
I mean, it might be, if that isn’t a thing, we’d all be surprised. But in this instance, this is not what the Entourage Effect refers to, this is in fact a phrase describing the effect of full spectrum CBD, and the theory that it is more effective than CBD alone.
For a fair while, it was believed by most CBD advocates that CBD isolate, which separates everything else and leaves just CBD, was the ‘best’ form of CBD, but that school of thought has been joined by an opposing one in recent years.
Before we start, just to clarify, we are not here to give an opinion one way or the other. But what we will do, is bring you information on the Entourage Effect, and what has led to it being arguably the most accepted theory in the CBD world.
What is Full Spectrum CBD?
The Entourage Effect is attached to full-spectrum CBD, so before we get into the effect itself, let’s take a second to explore what full spectrum means when it comes to CBD products.
There are two main forms of CBD available from the most respected and trusted outlets, full-spectrum CBD, and CBD isolate.
There is also broad-spectrum CBD, which is somewhere in the middle of the two, but for the purpose of simplicity, we won’t concern ourselves with that right now.
Full-spectrum CBD refers to CBD that is made using the whole plant (it can also be called whole-plant extract).
This means that everything that is extracted from the plant is used in the CBD product, including essential oils, terpenes, and, most importantly to some, other cannabinoids besides CBD, such as THC.
While trace amounts of THC can be found in CBD products, it’s important to know that registered, legal CBD products in Europe are taken from EU approved industrial hemp plants, which contain no more than 0.2% THC, which shouldn’t be even close to enough to cause a high.
CBD isolate, on the other hand, sees the plant extract be processed so all other elements are removed, leaving just the CBD alone.
The Isolate Advocates
There are still some who believe that CBD isolate is the better option, but until not long ago, that was the main thought process of anyone in the know when it comes to CBD.
However, CBD isolate came with an issue, a bell shaped issue.
Isolate had was is known as a bell-shaped dose-response, meaning that when the dose was increased, at a certain point, the effectiveness of the isolate stopped increasing, and then started to decrease.
This was an issue for scientists during their research, and it wasn’t until the publishing of a 2015 study that this problem saw a possible solution.
The Study of The Entourage Effect
Research carried out by the Lautenberg Centre for General and Tumor Immunology at the Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem showed that full-spectrum CBD did not have the same bell-shaped dose-response as CBD isolate.
Basically, the research suggested that the higher the dose, the more effective the full-spectrum CBD was.
This led to a big change in thought and the increase in popularity of the theory of the Entourage Effect.
The Entourage Effect
The Entourage Effect (which is one of very few things with a genuinely informative Wikipedia entry) is basically the theory that the separate elements in CBD are more effective when combined than they are alone.
Nobody can be sure as to why this is true at this point, while research has been attempted, there is no theory that can state conclusively why it is that rolling together like a green and pleasant rap crew changes, and possible increases the effects of CBD and the other cannabinoids and elements that are included in CBD.
Which brings us to a fairly disappointing conclusion if we’re honest, which is that we don’t know if the Entourage Effect is a thing, and if it is a thing, we are not sure why.
There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence to suggest full spectrum CBD has a greater effect, many scientists believe in it, and the research above seems to suggest that it takes away the bell-shaped dose issue caused by CBD isolate, but at this point, nobody knows why.
Obviously, if and when we learn, we will be sure to tell you immediately!
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