The Entourage Effect Isn’t really
a Thing (yet)
R ESEARCH
CORNER
Adam D. Richardson, Chief Scientific Officer
Aegis Biotech | [email protected]
Dr. Adam is an analytical chemist with over 20 years of experience
in the natural products and biomedical research fields. He brings
his passion for natural product therapeutics and expertise in
biomedical research to AEGIS to help develop cannabis-based
products for cancer, epilepsy, and other diseases.
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The phrase “the entourage effect” is often used when discussing the medical effects of cannabis. The meaning varies greatly however, depending upon the context. The first scientific use was by Shimon Ben-Shabat, Raphael Mechoulam and the rest of the team at The Hebrew University in their classic paper “An entourage effect: inactive endogenous fatty acid esters enhance 2-arachidonoyl-glycerol cannabinoid activity” in the European Journal of Pharmacology. The study showed the endogenous cannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl-glycerol (2-AG) bound to both CB1 and CB2 more tightly when in the presence of 2-linoleoyl-glycerol (2-LG) and 2-palmitoyl-glycerol (2-PG), two endogenous fatty acids that do not activate CB1 or CB2 on their own. The increase in receptor response to 2-AG when accompanied by 2-LP and -PG was observed both in cell-based receptor binding assays and in standard in vivo mouse models of cannabinoid receptor activity.
By Dr. Adam D. Richardson