Echinacea contains cannabinoids

[dub]

Alkylamides from Echinacea are a new class of cannabinomimetics.

The active ingredients of Echinacea are the cannabinoid alkylamides found in great quantities in the roots of the angustifolia species. Not all Echinacea is equal and when research is done, the type used is typically the purpurea as it is easier to cultivate and the parts used are the aerial parts: the leaves and the tops. These parts of the Echinacea plant contain 10-20 times fewer alkylamides than the roots. The E. angustifolia species has the highest amount of alkylamides in their roots but harder to cultivate and more expensive so the purpurea species root is often used in combination.

Alkylamides bind particularly to human CB2 and to a much lesser degree to CB1 cannabinoid receptors; as a result they are implicated in a variety of modulatory functions, including immune suppression, induction of apoptosis, cell migration and inhibition of tumor necrosis factor α TNF-alpha. These Alkylamides have similar potency to that of THC at the CB2 receptor, with THC being around 1.5 times stronger (~40 nm vs ~60 nm affinities). However, potency is dramatically less than that of THC at the psychoactive CB1 receptor (~40 nm vs ~ >1500 nm affinities).

[Admin]

I wonder if  Echinacea tea is so relaxing because of cb's?

[jyjy]

If I recall haven't the recent synthetics shown you only need minor CB1 activation for CB2 to take over and cause many of the psychoactive effects of the receptor system? Are these full or partial agonists?

[R]

Completely CB2 active, no CB1 whatsoever.  Not only that, isolating the active components is a nightmare in this case, and there are actually antagonists in Echinecea as well.

[skush]

This is very interesting, I'm sure there's many other flowers/plants that do contain cannabinoids because we have natural receptors, right?
CB2 does hold psychoactive affects I believe (I read research somewhere, I shall look for it) for example UR-144 is mostly CB2 active but it blows everyone's mind. It may just be the full agonist CB2 that's doing the trick.
Those chems really do fry the receptors. 
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15582455

[R]

CB2 sites have no psychoactive effects whatsoever.  As a recreational drug, Echineea is a bust.
 
If you want to look at some other plants that actually have CB1 agonists other than MJ, there are actually a few.  Look at things like Daucas (carrots) and Panax (ginseng) genus and you will find falcarinol for example.  There are plenty of other natural sources of CB1 agonists, but very few are either easy to get at (isolate) or have no adverse side effects.  MJ is still the best source for well characterized, well-understood CB1 agonists.
 
For your consideration : http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006295210001577
 
Get access to a Medline account and knock youself out searching.  There is a lot of R&D being conducted right now on cannibinoids and there are a lot of studies being published.

[the hellion]

Yangonin (one of the six major kavalactones in kava) was actually found to have CB1 activity...

[skush]

Yangonin (one of the six major kavalactones in kava) was actually found to have CB1 activity...

Wow, that's really interesting.. How high is the affinity for it, if you know? I drink kava on a daily basis, I can always feel the anxiolytic affects and the herb is great.