Blood work / lab results.

[sɥɐʞɐs]

I've yet to compile everyone's results that have previously been posted and I probably won't have time to until November.
I just got mine back, as a regular heavy kava consumer, and here are the results:

Liver/Kidney/Cholesterol
​

· AST 20 u/l
(normal 10-40)
· ALT 22 u/l
(normal 9-46)
· Creatine 0.91 mg/dL
(normal 0.60-1.35)
· Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.9
(normal 1.0-2.5)
· Cholesterol 203 mg/dL
(normal 125-200)
----------------------------------------------

History: I've been drinking traditionally prepared almost every night for the last 2-3 years and drank it occasionally for the 10 years prior.
I use about 8-10 Tablespoons per night. I often drink 'heavy' kavas, but mix it up more these days. I spent at least a year drinking a kava that was often 25% mixed with tudei. In my 20's I consumed alcohol regularly and will drink once or twice a month now, when I visit friends. 4 Days prior to my blood work(labor day), I drank alcohol at lunch and switched to kava at night, that kava also turned out to be tudei with aerial parts mixed in. Inadvisable. Luckily, there's no sign of it in my results.
I didn't drink anything in the 3 days before blood work. Liver/Kidney results both look perfect, no sign of damage.

Cholesterol result is just a step outside of the normal range and previous kava studies have mentioned a possible correlation between heavy kava use and raised cholesterol. It's even been hypothesized that dermopathy could be related to interference of cholesterol metabolizing. While this could be a diet related result, I'm also not the only kava drinker to show raised cholesterol. I'm fit but I don't eat healthy either. Eggs, chorizo, butter, toast, cheese, curries, burgers, pizza, chips, burritos, ramen...this is the stuff I consume regularly.

 

[The Kap'n]

Are you taking any prescription medications?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

Are you taking any prescription medications?

No meds. No history of meds.

 

[The Kap'n]

Excellent! This is great news. Thanks for posting

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

Honestly, if there was someone who was going to have suspicious kidney/liver results, I assumed it would be me.
But all I see here is that regular Ni-Van strength consumption of kava, alone, seemingly has no effect on your vital organs.

 

[Blippy5]

That are some good looking labs you have there

 

[CactusKava]

Interestingly enough, I was going to post results I just got this morning. Good timing, shakas! My total Bilirubin is a little low, but still in the healthy range. Everything else looks positively average:

For reference, I drink 1/2 cup of purely noble root 5 nights out of the week, and have been doing so for just over a year. I think it's safe to assume kava by itself does nothing harmful to the liver.

 

[Deleted User01]

I also believe that Kava can "help" elevate cholesterol but then of course everything seems to do that. Those are outstanding results for someone that has been into kava since before "tag was a pup". Mine were damn good too and I do kava and alcohol on my non-kava days. I think the liver thing must be genetic because a bunch of us here have tickled our livers for all our lives and we still have good results. Of course the people in this forum are probably a little big more health conscious than others and maybe we take better care of ourselves. Like we know not to binge on Kava and alcohol on the same night.

 

[nhoeg]

Boy, this is good news guys.

Consuming kava on a regular basis is not dangerous - period. Google and other medias need to know this.

 

[avahZ]

My results. Since April I have been doing kava pretty much daily and a few glasses of red wine a week. So far so good. Not a Doc, but from what I can tell these numbers are good. Not so sure what they all mean without googling them.

• LIVER PANEL- on 09/23/2015

Details

• ALT (SGPT) - 40 Range: 10-60 - IU/L

• AST (SGOT) - 25 Range: 15-41 - IU/L

• ALP - 51 Range: 38-126 - IU/L

• Albumin - 4.5 Range: 3.5-5.0 - g/dl

• Total Protein - 7.5 Range: 6.4-8.3 - g/dl

• Globulin - 3.0 Range: 2.9-3.3 - g/dl

• Total Bilirubin - 0.4 Range: 0.3-1.2 - mg/dl

• Direct Bilirubin - 0.1 Range: 0.0-0.5 - mg/dl

• Indirect Bilirubin - 0.3 Range: 0.2-1.35 - mg/dl

Edit moved from another thread.

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Awesome

 

[Deleted User01]

Nice post @avahZ. The FDA needs to see this.

 

[kilakila]

Just had my yearly blood test and all my numbers remained pretty much the same across the board. Been drinking kava for about 6 months now and had some just about every day for a week before the blood test:

AST - 18 (range 0-40) and actually 2 points lower than last test
ALT - 20 (10-60)
GGT (another liver function test) - 20 (0-60)

So I can happily continue to consume my stash!!

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

Since everybody is posting numbers, these are mine from a month ago.

AST - 22
ALT - 27
Bilirubin - .5
Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.6
Creatinine - .99

Kava and alcohol were both consumed the same day as the blood was drawn, kava early and alcohol later (4 shots of Tequila a couple hours before).

Substance History -- 0 - 10 months prior

Using Kava 5-7 days a week, normal dosage 5 Tbsp Micro (mainly GHK Mahakea), sometimes alternating with the same amount instant (mostly N@H, some GHK/Paradise).

Daily alcohol use, average 3-4 drinks per day. This taken within minutes or hours after kava depending on the day.

Daily benzo usage, small single dosage (.5 - 1.5mg Xanax), however much I happened to need

Daily use of either K* or Hydro/Acetamenophin (pain issues)

11+ months prior

Daily alcohol use in the range of 10-16 drinks per day (spread throughout the day). Daily kava use has brought this down dramatically. Non alcohol days -- benzo use (higher dosage -- 2mg Xanax & 4mg Klonopin. 2x divided dose) alternating days with kava use (12-16 Tbsp traditional prep, variety of sources but mostly N@H Wow).

There is way too much going on in my body but so far I think Kava has helped. I also didn't do a substance fast because I wanted to know what the readings would be on a normal day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Results 1 year earlier :

AST - 23
ALT - 23
Bilirubin - .6
Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.6
Creatinine - 1.03
Cholesterol - 220

No substances taken the day of blood draw. ALT was down slightly last year but I'm sure that can be attributed to the lack of acetamenophin (much more hepatoxic than alcohol) or the fact I had alcohol in my system during the latest test.

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Damn dude add some Adderall in their and you'll be shipped onto Dr phil hahha

 

[rayken]

had bloodwork done a couple days ago. i have been drinking nobe kava most days of the week since june.
bun 16.9 (6-20)
creatinine 1.20 (.7- 1.2)...its been this level even before kava most likely due to me lifting all the time plus creatine supplementation7
albumin 4.3 (3.5-5.2)
alk phos 67 (40-129)
ast 17 (0-40)
alt 23 (0-41)
i would like to point out as well that both my ast and alt liver enzymes have gone down since my last blood test which was during a time in which i had never touched kava.

 

[kilakila]

Since everybody is posting numbers, these are mine from a month ago.

AST - 22
ALT - 27
Bilirubin - .5
Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.6
Creatinine - .99

Kava and alcohol were both consumed the same day as the blood was drawn, kava early and alcohol later (4 shots of Tequila a couple hours before).

Substance History -- 0 - 10 months prior

Using Kava 5-7 days a week, normal dosage 5 Tbsp Micro (mainly GHK Mahakea), sometimes alternating with the same amount instant (mostly N@H, some GHK/Paradise).

Daily alcohol use, average 3-4 drinks per day. This taken within minutes or hours after kava depending on the day.

Daily benzo usage, small single dosage (.5 - 1.5mg Xanax), however much I happened to need

Daily use of either K* or Hydro/Acetamenophin (pain issues)

11+ months prior

Daily alcohol use in the range of 10-16 drinks per day (spread throughout the day). Daily kava use has brought this down dramatically. Non alcohol days -- benzo use (higher dosage -- 2mg Xanax & 4mg Klonopin. 2x divided dose) alternating days with kava use (12-16 Tbsp traditional prep, variety of sources but mostly N@H Wow).

There is way too much going on in my body but so far I think Kava has helped. I also didn't do a substance fast because I wanted to know what the readings would be on a normal day.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------


Results 1 year earlier :

AST - 23
ALT - 23
Bilirubin - .6
Albumin/Globulin ratio 1.6
Creatinine - 1.03
Cholesterol - 220

No substances taken the day of blood draw. ALT was down slightly last year but I'm sure that can be attributed to the lack of acetamenophin (much more hepatoxic than alcohol) or the fact I had alcohol in my system during the latest test.

Good grief - kava, alcohol and a benzo on the same day?? Something is not working if you have to do all three!
My only bad numbers were slightly high blood glucose and high cholesterol. But test only showed Total cholesterol. lord knows why that was high - I eat healthy, exercise. But have had four years of high stress and anxiety (family issues that are ongoing) so that could be reflected in those numbers. Anyone else had cholesterol issues with kava. Or anxiety for that matter?

 

[Chaucer]

Just got my test results. Items out of range are in red. I think a few of the metabolic items might have been high due to dehydration. High albumin doesn't seem to be a problem from what I have read. Anyway, here it is . . .

Cholesterol
Cholesterol, Total: 267 (125-200)
HDL Cholesterol: 79 (Greater or Equal to 40)
Triglycerides: 51 (less than 150)
LDL Cholesterol: 178 (less than or equal to 130)
Chol/HDLC ratio: 3.4 (less than or equal to 5)
Overall cholesterol is high but the ratio is good (i.e. good cholesterol counteracts bad cholesterol)

Metabolic Panel
Glucose: 94 (65-99)
BUN: 10 (7-25)
Creatinine 1.03 (.6-1.35)
eGFR 89 (Greater or equal to 60)
Sodium 136 (135-146)
Potassium 5.4 (3.5-5.3)
Chloride 97 (98-110)
Protein 7.8 (6.1-8.1)
Albumin 5.2 (3.6-5.1)
Alb/Glob 2.0 (1.0-2.5)
Bilirubin, total .7 (.2-1.2)
Bilirubin direct .1 (less than or equal to .2)
Bilirubin indirect .6 (.2-1.2)
Alkaline Phosphatase 53 (40-115)
AST 25 (10-40)
ALT 34 (9-46)

 

[Deleted User01]

Hmmmm, of course you know I can't comment on your test results, you know malpractice and all that nonsense. Let's just say that you aren't ready for the grave yet. Oh, and your liver results are outstanding!

Disclaimer. Deleted User01 only plays a licensed Doctor on the Kava Forums. Though he is licensed to practice at the Bunga Bunga Lounge, the cease and desist orders prevent him from permeating this forum with his sage medical advice.

 

[Chaucer]

I suppose I should have included a brief history to give context. I'm new to Kava (3 weeks on Gaia pills and Yogi teas) and 3 weeks on various GHK products. I use about 5 tbs of micronized or instant per day (spread out throughout the day). I wanted a test to see if I was doing any immediate damage and also to establish a sort of baseline for going forward. Just read on another site that my Chloride and Albumin are actually within range (apparently different labs have different acceptable ranges). I'll get another test in a couple of months.