Topic Title: Kava in UK
| |  "Kava in UK"
, Sat 6 Apr 01:52
I went to a health food store today to see how much Kava would set me back, and was told it had bee withdrawn from sale due to potentially dangerous drug interactions - she couldn't be more specific - in Germany!
Is this true does anyone know? And is anyone any wiser as to what the interactions were? Is there any way of getting kava anyway and would it be safe to do so?
Anyway, as an aside I was pleased to note that this particular healthfood shop was selling Quest vitamins, as recommended on these pages. I bought some of their B complex, and will buy their SJW when I start running low ...
Posts: 78 | | Registered: Tue 12 Mar 2002 5:43 |
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| |  "Re(1):Kava in UK"
, Sat 6 Apr 17:29:
Jos, you've been given a bit of a garbled message there  Kava got voluntarily withdrawn in January in the UK due to early reports of liver damage coming from Germany and Switzerland.
The current kava scare started with Germany's BfArM (German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices) back in December, who had gathered 24 case reports from Germany and Switzerland during a 2 year period. Although the evidence was very flimsy at best, authorities around Europe copied their position and started a voluntary withdrawal of kava in the marketplace. The US position is similar but no ban has been issued (see current FDA advisory).
Of course, any scientifically-trained person will recognise this scare as a total beat-up. There have been some excellent articles in rebuttal e.g. Hyla Cass, Healthnotes.
But perhaps the most sensible and scientific report I've read yet is this one:
http://www.aldbot.com/LiverReports-Introduction.htm
The news reports often mention the one patient who actually died of liver failure. As you'll see in that report, he was an alcoholic who had developed chronic liver failure years prior to using kava! This is a good example of why it pays to be skeptical of what you read and hear in the news.
Note also the incidence ratios in the report. The medical industry tolerates a certain percentage of drug incidents such as liver damage, and these are usually stated as incidents per million daily doses. Now compare these estimates:
Kava: 0.008
Bromazepam: 0.90
Oxazepam: 1.23
Diazepam: 2.12 (e.g. Valium)
As you can see, a lot of Kava users will potentially end up on benzos like these, which have a hepatotoxic risk many orders of magnitude higher.
By the way, I recently started using 100mg Kava for nights when I'm having trouble getting to sleep. It has a wonderful effect after about 20-30 mins ... you feel your muscles getting heavy and within a few minutes you just nod off
Epyx
P.S. I forgot to mention that no-one has ever reported kava-related liver toxicity in the UK.
[this message was edited by Epyx on Sat 6 Apr 18:30]
Posts: 138 | | Registered: Mon 3 Dec 2001 22:11 |
| | | "Re(2):Kava in UK" , Fri 6 Jan 22:27
Can anyone recommend a good website where you wont be ripped off, as its not illegal to own or purchase it, its just not allowed to be sold in stores.
Posts: 7 | | Registered: Thu 5 Jan 2006 20:42 |
| | | "Re(2):Kava in UK" , Sun 7 Apr 00:26
Hi Epyx, thanks for the links :) It does seem as though the risk from kava is minimal. Do you mind my asking where you managed to find a supply? Is it available on the internet anywhere?
Posts: 79 | | Registered: Tue 12 Mar 2002 5:43 |
| | | "Re(3):Kava in UK" , Sun 7 Apr 01:50
I bought it over-the-counter here in Australia. We don't have any kind of ban or advisories here yet (thank God). You'll have to find out if your customs department allows personal importation of kava. If you can, then it's all over the Net ... dead easy to buy e.g. iHerb.
Epyx
Posts: 141 | | Registered: Mon 3 Dec 2001 22:11 |
| | |  "Re(4):Kava in UK"
, Sun 7 Apr 08:33
Hi Epyx,
For some reason I had assumed you were in the UK - doh! :) It's encouraging to hear that kava is not banned in your neck of the woods. When I went to the store I was still only toying with the idea of buying some, and had not definitely made up my mind that I wanted to try it. So I will probably wait a few more weeks and see how the SJW alone goes, and, if kava is still not available here, will try to import some from somewhere ...
Posts: 82 | | Registered: Tue 12 Mar 2002 5:43 |
| | "Re(1):Kava in UK" , Sat 6 Apr 03:05
It was taken off the market due to possible ties to liver failure, which occurred in about 25 cases in Europe. you can also check fda.gov and do a search for kava.
Posts: 22 | | Registered: Tue 29 Jan 2002 19:58 |
| | | "GSK's Secret Plan to Push Happy Pills" , Fri 6 Jan 22:24
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a drug company in the UK , has apparently come up with a way to double sales of it’s drug Seroxat. GSK decided to pitch the anti-depressant as a cure for many other different mental health conditions.
A 250 page report strengthens the case of activists and lawmakers who have long accused GSK of putting profits above patient care and safety. The report concludes that GSK planned to double sales of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) by out marketing Seroxat’s rival, Prozac. The report also explained how GSK intended to market Seroxat for many different conditions other than depression. The most notable of these conditions was social anxiety disorder.
“What this document makes clear is that a number of different forms of anxiety were being targeted in a systematic way. The thrust was to move sales beyond the $1 billion to $2 billion mark by pushing it to people who were not clinically depressed,” said Professor David Healy, a psycho-pharmacologist at Cardiff University .
The report also found that, although GSK considered the short half-life of Seroxat to be a good thing, the opposite may be true. A half-life of a drug is the amount of time it takes for 50% of the drug to leave the patients bloodstream. Glaxo claimed that the short half-life of their drug would make it easier for patients to drop it’s use but research has shown that this may not be the case at all.
Seroxat was also the target of a ban in which minors were not to be prescribed the drug due to recent findings regarding addiction. In addition to this, a separate study found that children who took it had a higher risk of suicide.
Posts: 6 | | Registered: Thu 5 Jan 2006 20:42 |
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