Refuting liver toxicity?

[Steve Mariotti]

I'd really like to engage my wife with kava, but she has read enough to be scared of it. She's a doctor's kid from a medical family and is very suspect of anything that doesn't show irrefutable proof using well documented, well controlled double blind studies with large test populations.

How might I go building a case for kava and allaying her concerns? Either in refuting previous studies that have shown toxicity, or in providing substantial positive proof that toxicity is not common? These studies would have to be pretty high-falutin', and would need to be very recent to hold water for her.

Having such a resource would then be invaluable when introducing others to kava.

I could embark on a research project of my own, but I'm no doctor, biochemist or liver specialist. I don't want to spam her with 50 studies and say, "Read all these, and be enlightened" either.

Thoughts?

 

[Sean D.]

For what it's worth
http://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/herb-books-kava.3645/

 

[Steve Mariotti]

So recognize this thread is a pretty big ask, and many of us have treaded this ground on numerous occasions. The site kava.guru (who's the author?) and the kava library as well as the kavapedia, so maybe I'll just use this thread to ask a few directed questions and/or float some recent papers I encounter, if that's OK.

The first one that looks interesting to me is an article published last month and available via SpringerLink (does anyone have access to the full paper?)

Archives of Toxicology
February 2015
Date: 14 Feb 2015
Hepatotoxicity of herbal and dietary supplements: an update
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00204-015-1471-3

None of the papers in the bibliography are newer than 2010, though.

There's this paper, from Fitoterapia, which I think I've seen referenced on the forums:
Volume 100, January 2015, Pages 56–67
Contemporary Pacific and Western perspectives on `awa (Piper methysticum) toxicology
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0367326X14003104

Which is the culmination of a 5 year NSF study: "This review paper integrates cultural and Western perspectives on efficacy, toxicity and the future cultural and commercial significance of `awa in the Pacific. Here we present a detailed review of traditional and non-traditional kava usage, medicinal efficacy and potential toxicological concerns. Recent mechanistic data on physiological action and potential pathological reactions are evaluated and interpreted."

Seems a promising source of current information.

At the upcoming conference in Hawaii, there'll no doubt presentation of findings in this area. Does a layman like myself (who doesn't have access to anything behind scholarly walls ($40 for a paper! dang!)) have a way to read the proceedings from the conference?

 

[KeepOnKrunkin']

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12895162

I'm sure they're alcohol use is also a factor, but not the sole factor. Everything has a price. A little liver value elevation I couldn't care less about.

 

[HeadHodge]

...How might I go building a case for kava and allaying her concerns?...

Talk to her about it over a couple of glasses of wine.

 

[Jake o Links]

Yes... wine indeed! Alcohol, a substance in double blind studies proven to cause liver toxicity, but only if the latteral part of the hops is fermented. In Germany, they use only the roots of the hops and barley, and they show no greater risk of liver toxicity than any other culture... Alcohol has been injested in Germany safely for thousands of years, with no harmful side effects. You see, the trick is in the prep method, and the parts of the plant harvested for fermentation.

 

[Steve Mariotti]

And yet alcohol abuse can still give you a liver the size of Delaware.

 

[Jake o Links]

And yet alcohol abuse can still give you a liver the size of Delaware.

...but not in Germany... and it doesn't cause cancer in California! (but everywhere else it does)

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

i usually look in the mirror, hold my chin up and draw my fist toward my chest while saying aloud, "Liver Toxicity, I refute you!". That's just my method of refuting liver toxicity, seems to be working well so far:

 

[Jake o Links]

i usually look in the mirror, hold my chin up and draw my fist toward my chest while saying aloud, "Liver Toxicity, I refute you". That's just my method of refuting liver toxicity, seems to be working well so far:

View attachment 2817​

I take the more classic approach. "liver toxicity, I rebuke thee!"

 

[forest]

My partner is a mental health counselor with training in substance abuse. She was also a little bit alarmed when I started using kava for the same reasons you describe.

One thing that helps is making a plan to visit your doctor every year/6 months/whatever and getting your blood work done to see if anything is changing. Monitoring this is just a good idea on its own, but it will also shows concerned relatives that you are taking the alleged risks seriously.

Sent from my KFTHWI using Tapatalk

 

[Steve Mariotti]

i usually look in the mirror, hold my chin up and draw my fist toward my chest while saying aloud, "Liver Toxicity, I refute you!". That's just my method of refuting liver toxicity, seems to be working well so far:

View attachment 2817​

See, the punchline is the jaundice.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

just might, with the bastard-mix im brewin up tonight

 

[HeadHodge]

Yes... wine indeed! Alcohol, a substance in double blind studies proven to cause liver toxicity, but only if the latteral part of the hops is fermented. In Germany, they use only the roots of the hops and barley, and they show no greater risk of liver toxicity than any other culture... Alcohol has been injested in Germany safely for thousands of years, with no harmful side effects. You see, the trick is in the prep method, and the parts of the plant harvested for fermentation.

If you're not bull shitting, that's pretty interesting. I had never heard that.

 

[HeadHodge]

I take the more classic approach. "liver toxicity, I rebuke thee!"

My 24x7 T-Shirt:

 

[Jake o Links]

If you're not bull shitting, that's pretty interesting. I had never heard that.

oh no, it's almost total bs. I was making a joke about the typical kava facts we use to defend our prized root. The only partial truth is that I did read somewhere that German's are far less likely to be affected by over consumption than others. Ive also seen refuting studies, so dunno.

 

[Steve Mariotti]

oh no, it's almost total bs. I was making a joke about the typical kava facts we use to defend our prized root. The only partial truth is that I did read somewhere that Germen's are far less likely to be affected by over consumption than others. Ive also seen refuting studies, so dunno.

That speaks to local populations adapting to local habits (or dying off, being unmarriable or being ostracized and moving away) if they don't/won't/can't. Social evolution.

And may explain to some degree why polynesian cultures have no ill effects from kava where european cultures support some incidence of toxicity, as well. I will have liver panels this week, and will post my results. I have some historical data on my liver levels too as I've been tested with some regularity over the years. Niacin, for one, pretty much cooks my liver.