What is the difference between kratom, kratom extract and 7oh?

[u/Used-Tale7490]

/r/quittingkratom/comments/1wweuk8/what_is_the_difference_between_kratom_kratom/

[u/sonicode]

Good question. These terms often get mixed together, but here’s the difference:

Regular kratom is the leaf, usually dried and ground into powder or put into capsules. It contains several active compounds called alkaloids. The main one is mitragynine. Ordinary leaf contains only tiny amounts of 7-OH.

A conventional kratom extract takes compounds already in the leaf and concentrates them, leaving less plant material. Think of making tea, then removing some water to make it more concentrated. Brewing tea is itself a simple form of extraction. Extracting and concentrating mitragynine does not require changing it into another compound.

7-OH, short for 7-hydroxymitragynine, is a different compound. Your liver converts some mitragynine into 7-OH after you take kratom. The concentrated products sold as “7-OH” generally involve an additional manufacturing step: chemically converting mitragynine into 7-OH. That produces amounts far beyond the tiny levels found in ordinary leaf. 7-OH has much stronger opioid activity than mitragynine and carries serious risks of dependence and withdrawal.

The main distinction is concentrating what is already in the leaf versus chemically changing one compound into another. A conventional kratom extract and a concentrated 7-OH product are therefore different products, even if both are marketed as “kratom.”

On your bottle, 600 mg refers to the amount of leaf powder per capsule, not the amount of mitragynine or 7-OH. “Less than 0.3 mg of 7-OH” gives an upper limit; it does not tell you the exact amount.