Kratom again, this provocative article: Is kratom a performance enhancer or a lethal opioid?
If something is used to withdraw from heroin or is advertised to get off heroin, isn't that a tiny hint that it might be dangerous? I bought a package at our tobacco store. It says "avoid Big H and pharmaceuticals." I puzzled over Big H: hospital? Health care? Oh. HEROIN.
Like, hello. I had to do special training to get a second DEA to prescribe suboxone and buprenorphine. So that I would not harm people. Because this stuff is dangerous. Back in 2011 it was 16 hours. Now it's down to 8 and free, because opioids are such a nightmare.
My patient who got off oxycodone and on kratom, well. The dose is climbing. He does it in grains, so I didn't bother with the math. The dose has doubled or tripled on bad days. And a naturopath gave him a medical marijuana card so he grows 15 plants and guess what! Chest pain! So now off to the cardiologist, la, la, la. But he says it's natural so it can't hurt him! No side effects! Well, unless you count the chest pain. No, let's blame that on chemicals and modern life, but not on watching television or twitter and let's drive the SUV to the natural supplement store.
Body builders and athletes and apparently 27 year old police guys are using kratom as performance enhancement, build energy, stay awake. The pro kratom people are saying, no, it's a lie, he must have been using other stuff, because kratom can't kill you.
A pill is a pill is a pill. When you concentrate substances, you increase the risk. We could all take our shoes off and hunt some animals for skins to wear and food and move back to the caves. I am sick of people saying they are on natural hormones: the natural thing is the hormones stop. If you take hormones, that is unnatural.
And now companies are selling young peoples' blood for anti-aging: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-19/beware-of-buying-young-people-s-blood-to-prevent-aging-fda-says. Really? Why not get holes drilled in your eye teeth so you can get the blood "naturally" like a vampire bat.
Or maybe bat teeth could be transplanted into old people to make them young again. Or more bats.
Eat food not pills. Eat food that is food, not medical food. That's a lovely scam. They take food "organic! natural!" and do stuff to it until it's a powder. It can be reconstituted with water. Then they can sell it as a medical food and ask me to prescribe it! How often have I prescribed medical food in 30 years! NEVER!