A Pooled THC Blood-Pressure Reduction Included Species Subgroups Without Significant Changes
The THC cardiovascular review found pooled animal blood-pressure reductions while some species subgroups did not show significant changes. The pooled average did not establish a uniform response across species.
Subgroup results qualified the overall pattern
For acute dosing in anesthetized animals, the review reports significant pressure reductions in rats and cats but not in the dog subgroup. In its conscious-animal analysis, pressure comparisons in bats and rats were nonsignificant. These observations belong beside the overall pooled direction.
A subgroup null is not proof of equivalence
A nonsignificant result does not demonstrate that the true effect is exactly zero. Small samples and imprecision can matter. Conversely, a significant pooled result does not establish that each subgroup experienced the same change. Differences between significance labels also do not automatically establish a statistically significant difference between species.
The model determines how far the result travels
Dose, route, anesthesia and baseline physiology varied across the evidence. These conditions make it inappropriate to assign the pooled pressure reduction to an individual animal or human. The review supplies a conditional average across selected comparisons, with explicit exceptions and substantial heterogeneity. Preserving the subgroup results prevents a broad statement about THC lowering blood pressure from concealing what the underlying studies did and did not show.
Related analysis: the study’s broader findings and limitations.
