WSU receives $7.5 million to study kratom, chronic pain and sleep

Why it matters

A five-year, NIH-funded project will examine kratom’s risks and its effects on chronic pain and sleep. The announcement describes planned research, with no treatment results yet.

The big picture

Washington State University says Mary Paine will lead the $7.5 million project with collaborators at the University of Arizona and the University of North Carolina Greensboro. The work will move from authenticated plant material and mouse studies toward a planned human sleep study. Kratom has no FDA-approved medical use.

Key findings

• WSU announced a $7.5 million National Institutes of Health grant for a five-year project on kratom, chronic pain, sleep and quality of life.
• Mary Paine, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at WSU, will lead the Botanical Dietary Supplements Translational Research Team.
• Natural-products chemists at UNC Greensboro will select and authenticate kratom material without additives often found in commercial products.
• Researchers at Arizona and WSU will conduct mouse studies before Paine’s group and the WSU Sleep and Performance Center plan a sleep study involving people with chronic low back pain.
• The university says the project will inform future full-scale efficacy trials; this funding announcement establishes neither clinical benefit nor safety.

What they say

“But the science has lagged behind and some decisions are being made without having concrete, definitive scientific evidence,” Paine said in the university announcement.

Bottom line

The new grant funds a staged investigation of kratom and chronic pain, with human sleep research planned and efficacy still to be tested.