Tribal History of Kambo

The most prevalent legend regarding the origins of Kambo comes from the Kaxinawa in Brazil.

The people of the forest had fallen ill and their shaman, a man known as Kampum, took sacred plant medicine to enter a trance and communicate with the spirits of the forest. He was contacted by a feminine spirit who presented him with a frog and taught him how to use it’s medicine to heal his village. When he came to he brought this frog medicine to his people and was able to cure him. When kampum passed years later his spirit passed into the the spirit of the frog, which became known as kambo. For thousands of years the practice of kambo stayed in the forest, it was not until the 1990’s that half-indigenous rubber tappers known as the Cobocla people learned the practice from the natives and began to take it to cities in Brazil. From there use of kambo has slowly spread all over the world, gaining massive momentum in the past ten years. There is a shift occurring, more and more people are seeking alternative paths to healing and looking for deeper connection with themselves and the world around them. Kambo is an important part of this shift.  

Science of Kambo

An Italian scientist and Nobel prize nominee, Vittorio Erspamer of the University of Rome was the first person to analyze Kambo in a laboratory.  

In 1986, he wrote that it contains a ‘fantastic chemical cocktail with potential medical applications, unequalled by any other amphibian’. The chemicals that he referred to were peptides - short chain amino acids that make up proteins in our body.  We are made of water, peptides, and protein. Currently there are over 70 Kambo patents lodged, mainly in the USA. While scientists have been able to isolate and synthesize some of the peptides in kambo, there is no substitute for the real thing.

Some of the peptides in kambo are neuropeptides, which means that they specifically affect the activity of the brain and body by communicating with neurons.  Insulin, oxytocin, and endorphins are examples of integral neuropeptides. Other peptides found in kambo are bioactive, composed of a specific chain of amino acids which perform a function that the body recognizes as beneficial. The body opens to kambo at a cellular level, allowing it to clean out deposits left in the cells by foreign substances with no stress to the cells. This combination of peptides is a unique key that unlocks the body, allowing kambo cross the blood-brain barrier rather than being filtered out by the body’s defense system. This makes kambo an extremely powerful way to reach and treat disease.  

Kambo peptides include:

Dermorphin - Dermorphin has an opiate like effect on mu-opioid receptors, making it a very potent painkiller with effects 30-40 times stronger than morphine.

Deltorphin - Deltorphin is also a powerful painkiller and delta opioid agonist.

Phyllomedusin - A neuropeptide (possible to link to wikipedia page on neuropeptides?) that has a powerful effect on intestines and bowels, contributing to the purging often experienced when taking kambo.

Phyllokinin - This neuropeptide can cause a long lasting reduction in blood pressure.

Phyllocaerulein - Another potent painkiller that reduces blood pressure and affects thermoregulation.

Adenoregulin - A 33 amino acid peptide that works with the adenosine receptor. This antibiotic peptide can have harm-reducing effects against a myriad of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa, including cancer cells.

Dermaseptin - Induces potent antimicrobial activity against bacteria, yeast, fungi, protozoa, and enveloped viruses that often cause severe opportunistic infections.

Tryptophyllins - Highly potent against the yeast candida, may have potential in cardiovascular, inflammatory and anticancer therapy.