Many people ask what makes kratom work so good? There is extensive avenues to explore when asking this question. I remember the first time I tried it at a friends house in 2010. Kratom was new to America, and most people didn’t even know it existed. I tried about 3 grams of a green Malay strain, and thought to my self, “is this for real?” It hit me like a light pillow. I felt great, and it reminded of a few small blue pills from back in the day. I had known about this stuff for years but from my research it had been just another dud in the ethnobotanical world.
Just like Cannabis in the 70’s Kratom was week. The farmers in Indonesia learned how to grow the plant with more of a punch. The only way to pack a punch is to allow the plant to produce more active alkaloids. The more alkaloids per gram, the stronger the strange plant got. Cannabis has its main alkaloids such as THC, CBD, CBN ect… Magic mushrooms contain Psilocybin, Psilocin, and sometimes Baeocystin, each mushroom has a different amount which can change the outcome of the trip. Kratom is the same way except it has different compounds.
There are many alkaloids found in the kratom leaf among them are mitragynine, mitraphylline, and 7-hydroxymitragynine. These are the main alkaloids thought to be responsible for kratoms effects. Nature.com breaks down how these compounds bind with opioid receptors Mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine both bind to the human µ-opioid and ƙ-opioid receptors (hMOR, hKOR) with nanomolar affinity, and function as partial agonists at the µ-opioid receptor and weak antagonists at ƙ-opioid and δ-opioid receptors.
The list goes on for the amount of different alkaloids found in kratom. Here is the long list found so far in Mitragyna Speciosa plant. The following list was found @ frontiersin.org
mitragynine
speciociliatine,
speciogynine
mitraciliatine
paynantheine
isopaynantheine
7-hydroxymitragynine
corynantheidine
speciociliatine n-oxide
mitragynine n-oxide
tetrahydroalstonine
ajmalicine
corynoxine
corynoxine B
mitragynine oxindole B
isorynchophylline
isospeciofoline
speciofoline
mitraphylline
mitragynine pseudoindoxyl