Kava-kava in the News

[PoolShark1184]

Check out this story that ran on Boston's CBS affiliate about a "Dangerous New High"...http://cbs3.com/health/kava.South.Pacific.2.568277.html

This sort of fear-mongering gets me pretty angry. The newscasters are deliberately trying to make people afraid and worried about kava, and neglect to mention the recent WHO report or even mention much of anything about kava's traditional uses. The media is doing the same thing to salvia. I just hope that reports like these don't lead to old ladies and Christians trying to get kava banned.

Anybody have an opinion?

(Note: I didnt see a thread about kava in the news, so I made one. If there is a better place for this post, by all means move it. I check for articles on kava regularly so if I see any good ones, I will post them.)

Reputation Comments on this post:

	Good find.
	one nasty piece of news, thanks though

[razorwiredildo]

What a crock of shit.
This article was probably paid for by alcohol companies.
And what is with the use of out dated disproven info. Kava was proven to not be toxic to the liver.
American Capitalists just want your money to go to american corporations instead of to some kava farm in some other country.

[Alfa]

Please post the article and upload the picture.

[enquirewithin]

Kids Brewing Ancient Herb For A Dangerous High

BOSTON (CBS) ― It's been around for centuries but an herb native to the South Pacific is growing in popularity among young people.

Some kids are turning kava, an ancient stress reliever, into a legal high.

Jocelyn Jones, of Allston, Mass. knows all about kava. She worked on a farm in Hawaii that grows the plant.

"It's a social thing," she said. "It's kind of like drinking alcohol."

When harvested, the root is ground into a powder that is then mixed with water into a drink.

"It makes you feel good," Jones said. "It makes you feel like there's nothing really in the world that you have to worry about."

"It inhibits anxiety, worries and fears," said Dr. John Kelly.

Dr. Kelly, of Massachusetts General Hospital, said clinical studies have shown kava can relieve stress and anxiety.

"It does help people," he said.

Here's the problem. Some young people are taking an ancient island custom to the extreme. There are clips all over You Tube showing young people drinking mass quantities of kava.

CBS station WBZ-TV in Boston talked to dozens of college kids about kava and found a few who said they had tried it but only one would talk about it on camera.

"It would make me a little loopy," one girl said. "Just a little slow kind of."

Anyone can buy kava legally in the U.S. The $30 bag we ordered from Hawaii says "not for use by anyone under 18" but the Web site never asked for an age.

The bag does have a warning that says, "Excessive consumption may impair ability to operate heavy equipment."

"With any psychoactive substance that makes you feel sleepy or dopey -- you shouldn't drive with it," Kelly said. "You shouldn't operate machinery. You shouldn't do things where you need your faculty about you."

In California, prosecutors have charged some people with DUI after too much kava.

But getting drunk on kava isn't the only danger. It's been banned in Canada and several European countries because it's been linked to serious liver problems.

"Some people have had to have liver transplants as a result," Kelly said. "Those cases are few and far between. Never-the-less, we can't accurately predict who will respond that way and who will not."

It's a big risk for a brief high.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning about kava's potentially toxic effects but the herb remains legal.

[enquirewithin]

"Some people have had to have liver transplants as a result," Kelly said. "Those cases are few and far between. Never-the-less, we can't accurately predict who will respond that way and who will not."

I wonder if Dr Kelly really has any evidence for this?

There is some stupid stuff on Youtube. I wish people wouldn't post rubbish like that!

[Jeer]

SWIM agrees completely, it's stupid bull shit like that You Tube video that gives salvia a bad name as well. Why are some people so dumb, SWIM just doesn't get it.

[Mona Lisa]

I think it's even sadder that people can't tell that the whole thing was tounge and cheek.

[PoolShark1184]

tongue and cheek? What do you mean?

[Mona Lisa]

Originally Posted by PoolShark1184

tongue and cheek? What do you mean?

Oh, Sorry, it must be a British expression I mean that they're taking the mickey.

[enquirewithin]

Yes, that video was 'tongue in cheek' (ie, supposed to be funny), but people might be more careful about giving little known plants a bad name.

[JackARoe]

Yeah, really good reporting. They left out the term new date rape drug for real sensationalism.

I often wonder how some reporters made it as far as they have. It defies logic.

[PoolShark1184]

Unfortunately something some people dont even think about is the fact that some people make their living by growing kava (like in the south pacific and hawaii) and by selling it (online vendors, nakamal owners). Stories like this and the ones ran a few years ago in Europe are what gets substances banned, instead it should move people to do more research.

[psyche]

AFAIK the liver damage has resulted only when preparations of wrong parts of the plant have been used. I think they contain some very nasty alkaloids for liver, unrelated to kavalactones, which have never been shown to cause harm to liver. But they do inhibit a number of enzymes in liver, making it potentially dangerous to combine with other drugs. I have read some review of the liver failures, and there has been something like 25 liver failure cases, and nearly all of them had some confounding factor, wrong part of the plant or other drugs in combination. Also you should take in consideration that paracetamol(acetaminophen) accounts for 56 000 hospitalisations and 458 deaths per year because of it's metabolite NAPQI's toxic effect to liver in overdoses. Paracetamol causes 41% of the acute liver failures in the USA. When comparing the two, the argument of the danger of potential liver damage from kava seems outrageous.

[enquirewithin]

I think the whole hepatic damage idea was discredited-- that's been discussed before.

[enquirewithin]

Meanwhile in Fiji:

Kava 'over-consumed'
Friday, November 23, 2007

http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=74911

THE Fiji Kava Council's proposal to regulate the use of kava has been commended by a private medical consultant.

Dr Ram Raju, director of the Diagnostic Specialist Medical Centre in Nadi, said kava was dangerous when over-consumed and coupled with other bad habits such as smoking and drinking could prove to be lethal to one's health.

"I had worked out that on average, eight people die in Fiji everyday from cardiovascular-related diseases, with heart attacks as the leading cause. Many of the people are young and in their prime, in their early 40s," he said.

Dr Raju said the traditional drink had some benefits and was only useful when drunk in moderation.

He said a thorough study of kava-related problems in Fiji should be done.

[Bajeda]

I don't see where they pulled the heart-attack connection from. Smoking and drinking are habits they should focus on discouraging more than Kava use, though I think mixing all of them isn't helpful either and the effects of Kava when mixed with other substances such as alcohol and tobacco should be researched.

This feels rather unsubstantiated. The man is a director of a medical institute, so if he had direct experience with Kava related health problems or noticed worrying trends it would have been nice for him to share them with us. Otherwise he is saying Kava is dangerous in certain contexts without specifying the level or nature of the danger. Kava should optimally be used in moderation, but as with all things, people's behaviour won't reflect the ideal. Further study of the benefits and risks of Kava would shed more light on the situation and see if there is any real cause for alarm.

I don't know what sort of regulation they are proposing to enact. Any other articles more specific?

[enquirewithin]

Kava appears to be a very important part of Fiji's economy, so much so that the government to be involved in lobbying Germany and Australia to lift bans on selling it. A 2004 government report sates that

....the kava market is segmented into three categories namely Beverage market, which according to Fiji kava industry accounts for 10% of the global market, pharmaceutical (60%) and nutraceutical (30%).....Anticipating a re-entry into the market, Fiji targets to achieve millions of dollars from these three sectors...There is no scientific evidence to prove that the reported cases of liver damage were directly related to kava."

A recent press release form the government states this:

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have become the most common cause of morbidity and mortality and remains as one of the most challenging public health problems of the 21st century the Interim Health Minister Dr Jona Senilagakali said....

“ This has been attributed both to the effects of an ageing population and to the adverse effects on lifestyle that have come about with the industrialization of society. Coupled with this is the increase in tobacco, kava and alcohol use,” he said.

“ Tobacco smoking and drinking kava in excess are definitely not good for health. To prove this, the average lifespan for women is 72 years and for men 68 years. Why? It is because women hardly drink yaqona and smoke which is the pastime of men. The very sad result is that because men are killing themselves with smoke and kava, more women have become widows.”

Dr Senilagakali said “most of us are so busy with work, we resort to buy ready made take away food and have less time to buy and cook fresh fruits and vegetables for the family.”

This must be the source of the other article. It's not kava but lack of exercise and a poor diet which is the problem. The statement that "men are killing themselves with smoke and kava" is inaccurate. Also, in nearly every country in the world men tend to die younger than women. But it's always easy to blame drugs!

[snapper]

It has been proven that whole plant EXTRACTS were the cause of liver failure. Root or root extracts are not hepatotoxic.
Kava has been proven to be a substance of abuse in some communities, particularly aboriginal ones. there is an article floating around about this - SWIM will try to locate it. No different than any other abusable substance, but compared to the ravages of alcohol in these communities, kava is a reasonable compromise. In reality the health and substance abuse problems are socioeconomical and need to be addressed as such. Taking away a cash crop will not help the situation (though the aboriginies do not grow their own kava but have it imported).

[enquirewithin]

Originally Posted by snapper

It has been proven that whole plant EXTRACTS were the cause of liver failure. Root or root extracts are not hepatotoxic.
Kava has been proven to be a substance of abuse in some communities, particularly aboriginal ones. there is an article floating around about this - SWIM will try to locate it. No different than any other abusable substance, but compared to the ravages of alcohol in these communities, kava is a reasonable compromise. In reality the health and substance abuse problems are socioeconomical and need to be addressed as such. Taking away a cash crop will not help the situation (though the aboriginies do not grow their own kava but have it imported).

I thought that none of the plant had actually been found to be hepatoxic--as discussed in other threads. Can you give a source?

[snapper]

Here's the link for the abo article :
http://www.eclecticherb.com/kava/study.html (it is already posted here somewhere..).
Here is the reference looking at the pipermethystine content (hepatotoxin) in the plant vs the root (which contains none). It is speculative and unclear what is causing the isolated liver failure cases, however. Other possibilities are compounds in the alcohol extract not extracted into water, concurrent substances,diseases, or immune hypersenitivity reactions. Given the rarity of this condition, SWIM is not overly concerned. However, SWIM also only uses root or root extract just to be safe.

This review article is pretty thorough on the subject :
http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/117-1205/1143/

This is a link to the study (in citations of the above) specifically discussing the hepatotoxin found in the whole plant.
Tang CS, Dragull K, Nerurkar P. Fighting to save Hawaii's Kava industry. CAM Magazine 2003 May:6.

Reputation Comments on this post:

nice info