Kratom Medicinal Effects Explained
Let’s talk a little bit more about the medicinal effects of Mitragyna speciosa to help readers better understand this plant’s profile and personality. Mitragyna speciosa, also known as "kratom" is a medicinal tree that grows primarily in Southeast Asia. It has a broad range of medicinal action, but it is most often known for its ability to reduce physical and emotional pain through its opioid-action on the body. Kratom wants to help, but it does its best work when people are very clear about how and why they’re using it (Intention). As a medicinal pain-relieving plant in the same family as coffee, it can be mildly addictive for those who don't cycle between different ve
ins and strains (a topic we discuss in greater detail in other posts), but kratom also helps people overcome chronic pain by allowing sympathetic dorsal ganglion "nests" to disintegrate, reducing overall pain-sensitivity with long-term use. Meanwhile, kratom can be used to prevent or cure cancer or prevent or cure diabetes when used intelligently and with proper technique.
Like psilocybin mushrooms, kratom can be used recreationally, but the results of using it to “party” are very different than the results of working with it to heal. If you don’t believe that Intention can change how plants work with your body, you don’t have to take my word for it. You can try out this theory yourself, but you also need to be aware that using a plant medicine like kratom without a proper level of respect toward trying to understand it might damage your relationship with it. Don’t let this idea scare you from taking kratom with curiosity. Just be aware that heavy skepticism will warrant a response to that skepticism by the plant. Try to go into your initial kratom experiences with curiosity rather than conquest if you wish to understand it as a plant medicine.
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In pop culture, on a run-of-the-mill Google search, kratom is generally demonized. The whole plant tends to be presented as highly addictive and its wide range of medicinal effects are downplayed, if not completely hidden to the general public. In the scientific literature, a different pattern takes shape. Kratom is not studied as a whole plant with its own innate intelligence. Rather, it is studied for “lead agents” – substances that are taken out of the plant that can be used by Big Pharma to make a profit. In the first step of this process of seeking out “lead agents” from kratom, scientists take kratom into the lab and they divide it up into the various medicinal substances and molecules that are identifiable and “potentially useful” (by Big Pharma). In the second step, scientists take the medicinal agents that are most powerful (such as mitragynine) and they try to manipulate this substance into a molecule that does not occur in nature but that still retains some medicinal effect. The final product must be a molecule that doesn’t occur in nature because otherwise it cannot be patented and it won’t be profitable. Unfortunately, synthesizing a molecule that doesn’t exist in nature means producing something that interacts with the human body in an unnatural way. Conventional medicine (e.g. doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc.) is made up almost exclusively of unnatural substances that interact with the body in an unnatural way. This creates problems rather than solving them.According to prevailing beliefs in conventional medicine, herbs work because they contain medicinal substances. Scientists and doctors don’t believe that herbs are intelligent and they also don’t believe that the various medicinal substances, nutrients, and other substances found in a plant work together synergistically to produce a different, perhaps more healing effect, than a substance that has been extracted and then manipulated in a lab into something unnatural. A lot of money has gone into managing our beliefs about nature and medicine to ensure that conventional medicine is massively profitable and rarely questioned.
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As such, whole-plant based scientific studies are rarely funded except by private organizations or individuals. Funding for research at the time of this writing generally comes from very wealthy people who wish to maintain society’s belief that plant medicines are less effective than synthetically produced medicines. But because whole-plant scientific studies never get funded, one of the arguments that’s regularly set forth online against the use of whole herbs to treat disease, is the idea that the herb “has not been well-studied” to prove this or that in regard to its healing effects.
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Thus, a lot of the scientific research about kratom comes from scientific research about the substance mitragynine, a lead agent for Big Pharma. But mitragynine does not exist by itself in the whole plant, so its effects are modulated by the other substances in the whole plant material. We need to take this into account in order to understand kratom’s medicinal effects. Like the harmala alkaloids in Ayahuasca preparations, or quinine in Cinchona plants, mitragynine has a fairly broad range of action in the human body. We can learn something from mitragynine studies. But the only way to really understand how to use kratom as a whole herb, is to work directly with it. Kratom is not just a pain-relieving herb. It does many things and as a whole plant, it works best when it is used to treat patients holistically.
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Resources:
• Swogger, M. T. et al. (2022). Understanding Kratom Use: A Guide for Healthcare Providers. Retrieved May 14, 2026 from https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/pharmacology/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.801855/full?mibextid=Zxz2cZ
• Limcharoen, T. et al. (2022). Inhibition of alpha-Glucosidase and Pancreatic Lipase Properties of Mitragyna speciosa (Korth.) Havil. (Kratom) Leaves. Retrieved May 14, 2026 from https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/19/3909
• Erowid (2000). Kratom. Retrieved May 14, 2026 from https://erowid.org/references/refs.php?S=kratom
• (2023). Kratom and Diabetes: Exploring the Lost Connection. Retrieved May 20, 2026 from https://www.redstormscientific.com/kratom-and-diabetes-exploring-the-lost-connection/
• Tanna, R. S. et al. (2023). Translating Kratom-Drug Interactions: From Bedside to Bench and Back. Retrieved May 20, 2026 from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10353077/
• KratomLords (2022). Kratom for diabetes, does it really help? Retrieved May 24, 2026 from https://kratomlords.com/kratom-research/kratom-for-diabetes-does-it-really-help/
