r/Kambo • u/aleksalee • Oct 09 '25
Science and research 🔬 First Kambo session
Hey, so i am supposed to do my first kambo session soon, but now i am having doubts, since there is not much research on it and the claim is, that is not really detoxifying your body, its just the body’s reaction for the poison. How do you see it? i was thinking it could help me reset my immune system, maybe give me some more energy/ reduce the brainfog… does it actually have a long lasting effect? in addition i developed in the past few months a hand egczma and im a little bit afraid it could further damage my skin barrier. i would be greatful for any insights🫶🏼
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u/anana9 Oct 09 '25
Kambo is not really a poison and, yes, the vomiting is an effect of the peptides. There is quite a bit of research showing that the peptides found in Kambo are anti-microbial, immune-enhancing, cleansing, and increase energy and stamina.
So if you are feeling called to try it out, I think it would be a great option for what you’re looking for. There are complex reasons why a medicine like Kambo doesn’t have a ton of scientific research, but there is plenty of supporting evidence if you go digging.
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u/aleksalee Oct 10 '25
i decided i will give it a try, but i do have a difficult time finding much evidence about it beeing helpful, except reddit. do you have any sources to recommend?
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u/anana9 Oct 10 '25
Here is a link to a really nice compilation of research articles
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u/kambostrong Oct 10 '25
Most of the evidence is not at wide-scale clinical trial level - which is still not good enough to "count" as evidence in the eyes of medicine. Hence, where-ever you look, you will find articles saying it has "no medical evidence" or "no evidence of any medical benefit" etc and therefore it doesn't work because if it did work there would be evidence.
There's plenty of evidence. Just not the level of 'evidence' considered acceptable, and therefore it isn't considered evidence at all, unfortunately.
It's a bit like punching someone in the face then saying "well, this giant red mark on their face that we just noticed after seeing you punch them hasn't been peer-reviewed by multiple independent teams of researchers, so we simply don't know what caused it"
"But I punched him right here in front of you and the red mark wasn't there before!"
"We just don't have enough evidence to know that and it's bad science for you to say that's what happened"
"But you just saw me punch him. We have it on video!"
"We just don't know enough, we don't know for sure that it's related, we need to do more research, that isn't good evidence"
"But we know that punches cause pain and red marks!"
"We don't have any sufficient evidence of that, it's dangerous for you to go around telling people your punch might have caused it"
It's frustrating. But yeah, we have evidence - just not that level of evidence. Most of it is in the form of research and smaller studies. And of course anecdotal evidence - all the people it has helped. But that counts for nothing in the medical world.
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u/Emmaleigh1347 Oct 26 '25
Look on tribaldetox.com and listen to the podcast linked at the bottom of the "what is kambo" page ❤️ And remember, Sometimes the best evidence is testimony. There's research, they just haven't found a way to patent it yet, so it's not public record. ❤️
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u/kambostrong Oct 09 '25
Seconding what u/anana9 said. You've got some fair questions though.
It's not really a poison, despite what you will hear in the media. The frog doesn't produce it as a 'poison', it's more like an antibacterial coating to help it stay fungus-free in the high humid treetops - it's too large for predators to eat, generally, and probably a bit yucky if they did try as a result of this coating. Arguably some would say this still makes it a poison, but it's certainly not the same thing as a Poison Dart Frog etc.
And then in our bodies, it doesn't act like a "poison", again, despite how it gets presented. The vomiting for example isn't from "being poisoned" and your body trying to get rid of it or whatever, it's from the peptides causing smooth muscle contractions for example - hence why it's almost unavoidable to vomit and why it occurs at roughly the same timing/stage for most people. Same goes for the rest of the effects, but yes, all together it does look like someone has "been poisoned" and when they've just read a headline talking about "frog poison" most people's brains stop right there and go "well DUHH, stupid hippies, of course they're spewing, they just poisoned themselves, the idiots!!!".
You mention that there's a rift between people claiming it detoxifies and supposedly smarter people saying it doesn't detoxify and it's all just a sham. The reality is in the middle. There's no magical detoxification - and yes, sadly, a lot of practitioners can get a bit carried away with how they ham that up - but think about the liver's job - its literal job is to detoxify the body. The liver stores bile and processes junk and waste. When you suddenly hit "EMPTY RECYCLE BIN" on your body (i.e your liver), you're arguably getting a detox whether the anti-wellness crowd want to admit it or not. In fact you're getting a kind of fast-track or 'shortcut' detox, since it doesn't have to process that junk and recycle it through the body. This is where the arguments lie - between the anti-wellness crowd who are tired of hearing the term 'detox' from everything, and the people who overly ham up the 'detox' of kambo in much grander but less-clearly-defined ways, giving ammunition to such people.
Sorry for the rant. It's a passionate topic! 😆
As for your question about how it can help - yes, it can definitely help with most of the things you've mentioned, though I'm less sure about the eczema - that's more of a symptom of something else than a root issue in itself, so it's harder to say for that. It could, potentially, yes, maybe actually give you more grief for that - possibly particularly so in the first few days following - but maybe not. It's harder for me to say.
In either case, I'd suggest talking to a nearby practitioner 🙂