The entourage effect is the theory that the compounds in cannabis behave differently together than any one of them behaves alone. Cannabinoids such as CBD, plus terpenes and flavonoids, are thought to interact so that a whole extract produces a different result from isolated CBD at the same amount. This guide explains where the idea came from, what the evidence actually supports, and what it means when you are reading a label.<\/p>\n
The entourage effect describes proposed synergy between the compounds in the cannabis plant. The claim is not that one compound is stronger than another, but that a mixture behaves differently from the sum of its parts, because the minor compounds modify how the major ones act. In practice, the term is used to argue that a full spectrum hemp extract, which keeps the plant’s natural mix of cannabinoids, terpenes and flavonoids, is preferable to pure CBD isolate. It is the single most common reason people give for choosing full spectrum products.<\/p>\n
It is worth being precise about the status of the idea. The entourage effect is a hypothesis with a reasonable amount of laboratory support and very little confirmation in people. That does not make it wrong. It does mean the confident claims made about it across the CBD industry run a long way ahead of what has actually been shown, and that includes claims about what a full spectrum product will do for you.<\/p>\n
The cannabis plant contains more than 120 identified phytocannabinoids, along with several hundred other compounds including terpenes, flavonoids, plant sterols and waxes. CBD and THC are simply the two that have been studied most.<\/p>\n
Cannabinoids are the compounds that interact with the endocannabinoid system, a signalling network involved in regulating a range of physiological processes. CBD and THC dominate the conversation, but a full spectrum extract also carries minor cannabinoids including CBG, CBN, CBC and, in unheated extracts, the acidic forms such as CBDa and CBGa.<\/p>\n
Those minor cannabinoids are present in small quantities, often well under one percent, which is one of the practical objections to the theory. Any contribution they make has to be produced at very low concentrations. We cover them individually in our guide to\u00a0the different types of CBD<\/a>.<\/p>\n Terpenes are the aromatic oils that give a plant its smell. They are not unique to cannabis. They are what makes lavender smell like lavender and a pine forest smell like pine. In the living plant they evolved as chemical defences, repelling predators and attracting pollinators, and they are the main reason two cannabis varieties can smell completely different.<\/p>\n Five appear regularly in hemp extracts:<\/p>\n Terpenes are volatile, which is why they matter to how an extract is made. Heat drives them off. Supercritical CO2 extraction at controlled temperatures, which is the method Endoca uses on its own farms, retains more of the terpene profile than harsher processes do.<\/p>\n Flavonoids are pigment compounds found throughout the plant world, in berries, tea, citrus and vegetables, and they are the third group thought to contribute to the entourage effect. Cannabis contains roughly twenty of them. Most, including apigenin, quercetin and kaempferol, are common across many plants, but a small group called the cannflavins are found only in cannabis. Research on cannflavins is early and almost entirely preclinical, so any statement about what they do in a person should be treated as unproven.<\/p>\n The term was coined in 1998 by Shimon Ben-Shabat, Raphael Mechoulam and colleagues, writing in the European Journal of Pharmacology. Their paper was not about terpenes at all. It described how inactive fatty acid glycerol esters produced by the body increased the activity of 2-arachidonoylglycerol, one of the body’s own endocannabinoids. In other words, the original entourage effect was about compounds the human body makes, not compounds the cannabis plant makes.<\/p>\n The idea was extended to the plant by Ethan Russo in a 2011 review in the British Journal of Pharmacology, which set out how cannabis terpenoids might interact with phytocannabinoids and proposed specific mechanisms worth testing. That paper is where most of the modern conversation begins, and it is generally careful about the difference between a proposed mechanism and a demonstrated one. Much of the marketing built on top of it has not been.<\/p>\n This is where the entourage effect stops being theoretical and turns into a purchase. The three categories differ by how much of the original plant survives processing. Our longer comparison of\u00a0full spectrum, broad spectrum and isolate<\/a>\u00a0goes through them in detail.<\/p>\nTerpenes<\/h3>\n
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Flavonoids<\/h3>\n
Where the idea came from<\/h2>\n
Full spectrum vs broad spectrum vs isolate<\/h2>\n