Flavonoids are natural compounds found in plants, including cannabis. They contribute to a plant's aroma, flavor, and color. In cannabis, flavonoids influence the strain's unique taste and may offer potential health benefits due to their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

INTRO: If you examine a big, beautiful bud of cannabis flower, you will notice tiny hairs covering the plant. 

Those bits of plant hair are referred to as glands, and inside of those glands reside all of the therapeutic, psychoactive, and intoxicating benefits that the cannabis plant has to offer. 

Keep reading for a full breakdown of flavonoids!

Flavonoids 

Also present in fruit, vegetables, chocolate, and beverages like tea and wine, flavonoids are primarily known for giving plants their colors.

Flavonoids also play a vital role in helping plants function healthily by doing things such as:

• Preventing fungus and pests from infiltrating the plant

• Protecting plants from the sun’s ultraviolet rays

• Attracting pollinators by use of pigmentation

In the human body flavonoids act as cell messengers and have been used in Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. 

Flavonoids have no known negative side effects and are believed to: aid the development of the nervous system, protect against neurotoxin stress, and promote general brain health regarding learning and cognitive functions.

Science Behind Flavonoids 

The deep red of a grape, the electric green of a kiwi, these colors manifest because of flavonoids. The reason for those beautiful purple and blue hairs on your cannabis flower is because of the flavonoid, Anthocyanin.

You can tell if your fruits or vegetables are getting old and losing flavonoids if their colors start to fade. 

Flavonoids are vital to a plant's survival, and there is reason to think that flavonoids are good for people too! Studies show that flavonoids can help benefit the human body by: 

• Protecting cells from free radicals and damage (antioxidants)

• Fighting inflammation

• Improving cardiovascular function

• Treating infections 

• Narrowing the risk of cancer and diabetes

When a flavonoid occurs only in a cannabis plant it is called a “cannflavin.”

Cannflavins

There are only 3 cannflavins specific to weed (their names are Cannflavin A, B, and C), but they will not get you high. They do, however, have therapeutic benefits!

Cannflavins A and B are useful for helping to ease headaches, and more studies are being done to support that Cannflavins may be as good or better than aspirin because when combined with other cannabis compounds (CBD, THC, CHG, etc).

Cannflavins have been used to help with the treatment of pain and inflammation. 

There is still research to be done regarding these findings, but there has been significant reason to believe that flavonoids and cannflavins are naturally good for the human body; especially when they work in tandem with the other molecules in cannabis to form the entourage effect. 

The Entourage Effect 

The entourage effect refers to the event that occurs when all of the different parts of the cannabis plant work together on a molecular level within the human body.

In other words, when all the different elements of cannabis come together and help each other to be stronger, like the Power Rangers.

If you were to use an all CBD tincture for pain, it might help…a bit. But if you were to use a tincture with 15 parts CBD and 1 part THC, the CBD would work way better in the body because it has that little bit of THC helping to activate the molecular compound. 

Our bodies are equipped with a network of receptors that connect all of our nerves and organs, and then meet up in the brain. 

When we introduce several different molecular compounds like THC, CBD, CBG, terpenes, and flavonoids at the same time, our body gets an all-star combo of healthful benefits.

In Conclusion 

Plant medicine is amazing. The endocannabinoid system in the human body works perfectly in tandem with the different molecules of the cannabis plant and absorbs them into the body. 

Flavonoids are a very important piece in the cannabis puzzle that are non-psychoactive and great for treating inflammation, and helping with healthy brain function.

We live in an exciting time, as cannabis has been largely decriminalized around the United States, and what better way to celebrate than by incorporating some of the healthy benefits of cannabis into your routine.