Kratom doesn't sound like your typical herbal supplement, but it does come with all the issues common to the supplement industry. Namely, it hasn't withstood the test of clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy. 

And that causes problems. 

Problems like not knowing how much of the ingredient is in the supplement, or how much of other ingredients for that matter. Or wht kind of side effects might be evident if it were subjected to randomized placebo-controlled trials. 

But another problem is that it might actually offer a solution to a very big problem—opioid addiction But we don't know if it does because guess what? It hasn't been studied. 

This week, 2 Docs Talk about Kratom and why the regulatory requirements (or absence thereof) on the supplement industry might be causing us to miss out on some real benefits.