alt Hacker NewsUsing quantified isolates is the correct way to do a controlled study. Dosing is important.
Claims that you need a special combination of exactly the right strains are just a way to move the goalposts forever. They could study 10 different strains in controlled trials and the same people would show up to dismiss this study because they weren't using some random strain that has some perfect combination of entourage effect.
Using actual plants and smoking would also introduce another major variable, with further claims that the strains they were giving patients were too weak or they were smoking it wrong.
EDIT: I don't have time to read every single citation included, but the claim above that they were all THC or CBD isolates does not appear correct. One randomly selected citation:
> The short-term impact of 3 smoked cannabis preparations versus placebo on PTSD symptoms: a randomized cross-over clinical trial
So the claim above that they didn't investigate smoked cannabis or "entourage effect" is false.
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> Using quantified isolates is the correct way to do a controlled study. Dosing is important.
That's the correct way to do a controlled study on the isolate - not the plant that it comes from.
It's clear to me at least that the authors of the metastudy conflate the two and many shades between them for purposes of this study.
I think that's a bit of a straw man.
You could study one combination that is broadly representative and is much much closer than the isolate.
That's a great example study to highlight what I really mean by entourage effect. I've edited my post to emphasize most not all - i only looked at the 6 anxiety studies as that's what I have the most experience with - as well as the included table which highlighted that the vast majority of studies included in this metastudy only looked at THC.
That particular study did look at High THC low CBD, mid THC mid CBD, and high CBD low THC. There's no information on the terpene profile of the smoked cannabis preparations, though, and that is a confounding variable in the entourage effect that potentially defeats the part of the entourage effect they did test. Additionally, a quick look at the cannabinoid %s in those smoked preparations rehighlights my point that these are not inclusive of all the chemical compositions that the cannabis plant could present itself in.
I still stand by my point and hope the clarifications bring the conversation back on track to the fact I was highlighting which is simply that this is a metastudy built off of studies that were conducted with restrictions on experimental design that few observers fully understand the research implications of.
Way to completely misunderstand and try in an underhanded way to the dismiss entourage effect.
It’s not smoking 10 strains in a row it’s the fact that you need CBD THC and all the terpenes to get the effects. So the current growing trend of just getting the THC number higher tends to result in plants that don’t actually give people the full spectrum of effects, beneficial or not.
So the correct way to do this would be a full spectrum isolate, which again you coincidently forgot to mention I’m sure.