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kava and cholesterol

mos3z

Kava Enthusiast
i saw this when i was browsing and thought it was interseting.could kava lower cholesterol?
Heavy kava drinkers acquire a reversible ichthyosiform eruption, kava dermopathy. The cause is unknown but may relate to interference with cholesterol metabolism.
 

kl.Jerome

Kava Curious
Or could it mean the opposite? My LDL cholesterol has been high despite my healthy weight, diet, and active lifestyle and I'm beggining to wonder if my heavy Kava consumption may have a part in it. I hope not, but my next test will be to try quitting kava to see how it affects my LDL levels.
 

kl.Jerome

Kava Curious
Barely eat any meat and never touch dairy.  Mostly vegan. Actually the more vegan I went, the higher my ldl went.  Who knows...
 

Andrew Procyk

Noble Kava
Kava Vendor
Wow. This is worth looking into. Where is it from?


My family eats the same foods I do, and I have no genetic family history of high cholesterol (Dad was 117 his last test!!!) yet my cholesterol is quite a good deal higher than my wife's.   (The smol wan has not had a cholesterol test yet.) There is only one major difference in generalized behavior, and that's a few dozen shells a week. Otherwise, I have done the diet and exercise thing for a while, and I could give it up for a while and see but..... AHHHHHH! I'm not giving up the grog! Not just yet! 
I was on stantins, but very shortly after I was written the script, my doc ran a gene test on me. Apparently, depending on genetics, the drug may do little or nothing for them. I happened to fall into the "little" category, so it is essentially pointless and useless to swallow pills. So if it is the grog, I can't even "take a (poison) pill to fix it!"


Let's just hope adding a few miles a week and a rollback on the monthly steak ritual will do the trick!


~AP
 

mos3z

Kava Enthusiast
hey papa, sorry i forget where i found that, i think i was researching dermopathy.


jerome, yeah that is strange ive never heard of cholesterol increasing on a vegan diet, ive been vegan for 13 years. I never get my cholesterol checked any more since it was great before i was vegan and my diet made it a moot point, but it would be interesting to get checked now that ive been drinking kava daily.


i interpreted the original statement differently, i thought it meant if it wasnt metabolized then it was passed through your system, i dont know though
 

kl.Jerome

Kava Curious
I took it to mean that the metabolization of blood serum is interrupted somehow, perhaps leading to a build up of cholesterol. 

But I'm no doctor! 

I've tried vegan, medeteranean, and now I'm on to a more 'Paleo' approach to use the latest diet fad terminology.  Over the past few years of trying to lower my cholesterol without drugs I've noticed when I go pure vegan, my LDL goes up and my HDL goes down.  But when I eat a lot of fat from healthy sources (maybe 20-30 percent of my caloric intake), my LDL goes down and my HDL goes up... I'm going to keep trying diet and test again in May, but if it looks bad I'm going to put kava on the shelf in the name of science (sadly...) and do a test. 

But don't worry too much about your LDL levels papakava... LDL levels are at best a weak correlation to heart disease.  I think somewhere around 50% of heart attack victims have low or normal cholesterol levels.  If you eat right, excercise regularly, and stay the hell away from processed foods, you should be fine.
 

kl.Missy

Newbie
Hey Papakava,


You say you take statin drugs for cholesterol.  Do you take a "generic" statin for Zocor?  That's really important because the generic statin for Zocor does

NOT work the same as actual Zocor~!  I know this for a fact because my Mom had heart disease and I read an article about the generic statin not working,

so we switched her to the actual Zocor and her cholesterol dropped like a stone!  She too, was vegetarian and the generic drug did nothing to help, but when

we switched (at our insistence) to real Zocor, it made a big difference.  You may want to talk to you Doctor about it and insist on real Zocor.  The drug companies

give kick backs to Doctors for prescribing their generics, and while some generics are fine, that is not the case with statin drugs.
 

Andrew Procyk

Noble Kava
Kava Vendor
Well here it goes....
I was not on a generic drug.  I know how the system works, as I wrote papers for pharm. companies back in my university days, until I ran into ethical problems with the practice.  That said, I recently had my numbers tested again, and they clocked in at 295.
295!!!!!
The ratios are in line, but still... That is nuts!  (Particularly for a largely vegetarian fellow who weighs in at about 150 at 6'3".)  After that result, despite the genetic test showing limited efficacy, I have recently been put back on the meds with follow up tests scheduled in the near future. (My PCP is NOT one who likes to put people on drugs of any sort, and tried to get them off them when he does, which is one of the reasons I like him.)  There is the theory that my liver produces it on its own from other non-cholesterol components.   
As I will be in Vanuatu for an extended period of time before my next test, it will be difficult to cut out the grog, but I might have to do so upon my return if nothing else proves efficacious.  I will keep you posted as to any info I gain, and would greatly appreciate if anyone can find the source material for the claim.  I'm sure my doc would love to see it too.
Meanwhile, I'm going to get back on a much more intense exercise routine since my spine is doing better, and further modify the diet; however, my cholesterol was always higher than normal - even before I had my first shell.  True, one person is not a study group, but again, I'll keep you posted.  
Alez!
~AP
 

mos3z

Kava Enthusiast
hey papa,


you mentioned you are mostly vegetarian, do you still consume any milk eggs or cheese, all of those will add greatly to your cholesterol
 
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