Scientometric and legal analysis of Kratom (Mitragyna speciosa Korth)

Abstract

Kratom (mitragyna speciosa Korth) is an indigenous plant to Southeast Asia and has a long history of being used by the native populations as treatment for pain or fatigue from intensive labor, in recent decades Kratom consumption has seen some significant changes when compared to the traditional and medicinal uses. These changes affect the scientific community regarding publications and their scope. With that, this work aims to better understand how the scientific community’s interest in being shaped by those changes in trends regarding Kratom consumption through use of bibliometrics and analysis of the data collected from different databases, both national and global, thus giving an overview of how global politics and marketing of these substances can shape scientific interest on a drug. The results analysis made possible to understand that in fact there is a correlation between the crescent access to Kratom based products and the scientific interest in studying the effects they have on humans, besides that, was found that there has been a broadening in scientific scope regarding Kratom, its alkaloids and their metabolites, signaling a preoccupation with their possible effects and toxicology.