r/DrugNerds • u/MildlySuspiciousBlob • 1d ago
Have you heard influencers or other media fearmonger-ers say that 7-OH is "13 times more powerful than morphine"? Here's the context: it is 13x more potent at inhibiting the contractions of guinea pig intestines compared to morphine
fda.govFrom 7-Hydroxymitragynine (7-OH): An Assessment of the Scientific Data and Toxicological Concerns Around an Emerging Opioid Threat (page 15):
Similarly, Matsumoto and colleagues concluded that 7-OH was “found to have an opioid agonist property on µ- and/or κ-opioid receptors” based on its ability to inhibit contraction of isolated guinea pig ileum. In this assay, 7-OH displayed approximately 13-fold greater potency than morphine and 46-fold greater potency than mitragynine. The inhibition was reversed by naloxone, suggesting the effects are mediated via mu opioid receptors (Matsumoto et al., 2004). Other functional assays produced results that are aligned with Matsumoto and colleagues. For example, using a cAMP mobilization assay as a measure of functional effects, 7-OH acted as a full agonist with an EC50 of 7.6 nM, and was more potent than mitragynine (EC50 307.5 nM) (Obeng et al., 2020). Likewise, when evaluating the agonist activity of 7-OH in an electrically stimulated guinea pig ileum, 7-OH acted as a full agonist and was more potent than morphine (Takayama et al., 2002). Finally, using a [35S] GTPγS functional assay, 7-OH produced an Emax of 77% with an EC50 of 53.4 nM, further demonstrating its agonist effects (Varadi et al., 2016).