IG Live! Your Kava Questions Answered by Cameron George of TRU KAVA

What's up, guys? I am doing Instagram Live here with my friends at Trucava, and Cameron from the company is going to join in. He was just on the podcast and I had so much feedback from the podcast. People just loved hearing about kava, what it is, what it does that I asked Cameron to come in and do an Instagram Live with us so he could answer some more questions about it. I'm asking myself and sort of publicly saying, I wonder if kava is the next CBD oil. And I think it actually might be. Hey, Saratoshi, love you back, man. And Mark, Yo. And hi from Italy. Here we go. I'm seeing Go live with true Cava. Here we go. All right, we've got both of us on.

Yay.

There's Nick the dealer. I wonder what you deal, Nick? Hopefully coffee. Right? So there's Croatia. We got Croatia, Brazil, Italy. I'm up here in Canada, but I'm American, from West Covina. Man, that's a tough country. All right, here's a question from thr circles, Brother Dave. Does kava affect liver? Let's ask a kava expert. We got Finland, Mumbai, Poland. I love the international audience here. The world is going bulletproof. All right, Livers and kavas.

Okay? Liver and kava. Right. So this is a big misnomer and it's a context conversation. Right? So the short answer to this is that if you get the wrong material and if you get the wrong kava, if you get the wrong strains of kava and it's processed poorly, then it can affect the liver to some subtle degree. And even that's been over accentuated. There was a small situation that happened in Europe in the early 2000s where a small series of studies was conducted by a pharmaceutical company that basically extracted kava in a way that made it more of a pharmaceutical that isolated a couple of the constituents and used parts of the plant that contain aerial. You know, those of you guys who follow this channel definitely know. Is it breaking up?

Yeah, it's breaking up. You got WI fi over there.

Yeah. Let me see if I can get it better.

I can. I'm going to fill in while he fixes his bandwidth. I'm going to fill in that answer because we talked about on the podcast.

Yeah.

So if you use the wrong parts of the plant, it's bad for the liver. And a lot of times pharmaceutical companies or regulators will say, we don't know about that. We don't like it. And they'll find an impure example, and then they'll Say therefore it's all bad. The same thing happened even with basic amino acids for sleep. Someone made something that wasn't the amino acid. So then they banned tryptophan, the amino acid which is present in food, because there was a problem making it. And so I would say here with kava, there's no evidence that kava that's made with the right parts of the plant is good. Likewise, if you were to say wheat's bad for you. Actually, wheat is bad for you, but if you grind up the roots and the stalk, it's even worse for you than eating just the seeds. Right? So you got to get the right parts.

Absolutely. Can you guys hear me now? Am I good now?

Yeah, you're much better now. So I answered the question for you, and I've got a young biohacker who just joined us. Oh, yeah, he's gonna steal a bulletproof collagen bar. So, any other questions here? Oh, here we go. Kava versus Phenibut.

Oh, great question, actually. So, Dave, you're familiar with Phenibut. So Phenibut is. It's a synthetic. It was developed by the Russians, and it binds to the GABA receptors in the brain, so it enhances that system, that calming system that's the brakes of the nervous system, just like Kava does. But Kava does it in more of a regulatory, modulatory way. Right. So it's kind of like we explained on the podcast. You guys can go listen to it. We explain the difference between pharmaceutical substances or pseudo pharmaceutical substances and plant compounds. Phenibut is a really interesting compound, and it has merit and usage in certain contexts, but it can elicit some tolerance issues whenever you take it back to back. And there have been reports of some withdrawal symptoms, not as bad as a. But with Kava, there are none of those issues. We have a 3,000 year history of safe use with Kava. So it's just one of those things that I always go to the plant compounds first. And for me, I got much better results off of kava than I did with fenibut, especially with sort of rehabilitating my system and getting off of benzodiazepine.

Let me talk about fenibut a little bit. So Phenibut is interesting. It's basically the GABA molecule, which is something that you make. You actually eat it, and it's something that you make to calm the brain down, and you add a phenol molecule to it, which makes it Phenibut, which the Russians invented a long time ago. And this makes it very long lasting in the brain. Now this is a good thing, except that if you take it for too long as a three day half life, it builds up and it builds up and it builds up and it can be addictive and can be a real problem. Except it's also really good if you take it every two or three days for sleep specifically. So it's one of those real powerful things that can be misused and it's something that in the US is really in the gray zone. So I think we all have a right to buy stuff and use stuff like that. Just you have to know if you're taking Phenibut every night, you're doing it wrong. And so it's a little bit of an issue there. But with kava, it's not like that. Like I've been doing since we sent this out in the Dave Asprey box. I have this curated box I've been sending out forever. So the Kavaplex, this is the stuff that you make, which is the oil. I take it every night. And guys, I'm not going to take tell you everything that's back here, but you see this incredible counter with the drug dealer scale, lots of bulletproof products and a whole bunch of other weird vials and stuff like that. I'm always hacking and all. But I will tell you that the kava oil that you guys make have been, has been in my, my stack for sleep for like the last probably two years now, maybe a year and a half. So I think that stuff that really has proven to work with my Oura ring. And people are now saying, do I take Phenibut? I actually did for a while. I actually formulated some of the fenibut years ago.

The Gabawe.

Yeah, Gaba wave. And it had, you know, liposomal forms in it. But it's just, it's one of those things where it's. I just didn't want to get anywhere involved with people overusing it, so I made it taste really bad. But it works really well. But I'm not in that, not in that business because it's just it. There's just too many other good things you could do that don't have those issues, like kava. So you take the kava and you feel really good when you're, when you take it. It's not like a buzzy high, it's not even like an espresso kind of thing. But I find it's like a chill, relax thing. On the podcast we recorded I Actually took one of the shooters. You make the shots just to see, hey, like I feel, I feel good on it. Oh, star I box link daveasprey box.com or aveasprey box. I'll put it here. So if you guys were subscribers, you would have already gotten some of this. I'll put that in there. I just posted the comment with the name for it. Okay, question. Kava with gaba and melatonin is from Soul Eye photos.

Yeah, I mean, so kava stacks well with almost anything that also enhances that pathway. Right. So if you're going to. Because kava has a modulatory kind of effect on that whole system, it helps up regulate. It helps with a lot of different sort of steps in that chemical sequence. So if you add gaba to it, then you're just adding more of the available neurotransmitter and so it tends to intensify it a little bit. Same thing with taurine or theanine or any of these sort of supplements that are in that wheelhouse. Valerian root, chamomile that are all relatively mild compared to Kava is like the powerhouse sort of gaba enhancement supplement. You know, just ultimate breaks for the nervous system. So yeah, they all work together. They really do. All the natural.

What wouldn't go well with kava?

Well, high doses of alcohol.

So you shouldn't get shitty drunk and take kava.

Yeah, exactly. I mean anything that's going to a small amount of it. I mean, I've talked to people who have stack them together and you can get an enhancing effect. But for me, I have always used kava as an alternative to alcohol because it gives me all the effects of alcohol without the drunkenness with the stronger forms of it. So they're generally not good companions. A bunch of drugs, obviously those are things that you always consult your physician for before actually taking them. But that can be a problem. There's not really a whole lot of counter indications in natural things and foods and stuff. Kava goes really well with fats because fats enhance the absorption of it, especially saturated fats and MCT oil and things because that helps you sort of get it into the brain.

Because I actually, I'll blend the oil that you guys make, the kava plex. I'll blend that into my bulletproof. Sometimes just just for fun. It's a, it's a like a kind of a mellow, calming thing. I'm seeing a question from Eman Taylor. Best kava stack for sleep. And guys, I'm just going to point out if you DM the word sleep to me, I'm doing a sleep challenge right now where I'm teaching you everything there is to know about sleep. Just DM sleep to me and I'll send you a link. And we actually talk about kava in that as one of the things you could do. We're talking about the kavaplex thing very specifically. So that would be a good way to learn more. My answer for kava stack for sleep is I do two full dropper fulls of kavaplex before I go to bed. And then I take the life cycle lion's mane mushroom extract, and then I take the sleep mode that I formulate for bulletproof and some different forms of magnesium and some other stuff. But that would be my primary sleep enhancement stack right there. But I really do this every night. It makes a difference for me.

Yeah, I actually have used that pretty much that same sleep stack a lot of times. I'll add another Chinese herb called Zizyphus jujuba, which is a really, really good Chinese herb. I'll get it from a company called Lost Empire, and they create a concentrated powder and I'll put that in my kava drinks that I make. And really they intensify each other because they both affect that pathway as well.

That's good juju, not bad juju. Good juju, not bad juju.

Right.

That was just a bad joke. I couldn't help myself.

Yeah, exactly.

All right, question for you on does it affect the cannabinoid receptors?

We don't have any evidence to suggest that it does bind to CB1 or CB2. It has effects as serotonergic effects. It has dopaminergic effects on serotonin and dopamine, gaba. It has effects on blocking ion channels like calcium channels, which is a neuroprotective thing. And so it has a lot of these sort of neurostabilizing, sort of calming enhancing pathways, but we don't have anything to suggest it binds to cannabinoid receptors. Some people have hypothesized it, but we really don't have anything yet to suggest that. So it stacks well with cbd, actually, because that cannabinoid system is like the regulator of the regulators and calls like more directly the brakes.

So if it blocks calcium channels, I haven't tried it for this, but when I start flying again. One of the problems when you fly is you're getting lots of EMFs and you have low oxygen levels. So that ends up causing the EMFs caused the calcium channels that are voltage gated to open up. So if you're lowering calcium in the cell with kava, maybe taking a shot of kava before you get on an airplane is not a bad idea. I could see doing that. That makes sense. And Lisa says kava with brain octane. Absolutely. Brain octane helps most other oils get into the body.

Yeah.

And question from traveler of love, Is there a bad time of day to take kava? I don't know the answer to that. I take it generally in the evenings and sometimes in the afternoon.

Yeah, exactly. That would all depend on the strain, the strain that we use for our first two products. The main one that we use in the kavaplex is one called Barragoo. We talked about on the podcast that there's daytime strains, there's nighttime strains, and there's some that are kind of in the middle that hit on sort of all of the effects without over accentuating too much of either one. Barragoo, you can take it any time of the day. It's going to give you that sort of what I call the kava zone, which is like calm focus and that creative thinking. It's that really good zone for just functioning in a very calm way, but yet not a sleepy way. But then it leads to a good sleep at night. And that's kind of what we want for versatility. There are some strains we'll be offering in the future that will be more just straight, very sedative strains for nighttime, and some that are very nootropic and not even sedating at all. But what we have right now, you can take pretty much any time of the day. That's sort of what we were trying to shoot for anyway.

All right, cool. I've never taken this on waking up. I feel like I wouldn't need it. But you never know. So let's look for some other questions going through here. Hey, Willisness, you got to send me a direct message. Unfortunately, my thing that sends you the link can't do it. And you can't put links in the comments here, but only on a direct message. That's why you have to DM me. How long does it take for bad oils get out of the body once you stop consuming them? So this is probably less of a kava question because the kava oil is unlikely to be taken up in your cell membranes. But I will tell you from the books I've written, especially last anti aging book, the half life of oils in the membrane of your body is about two years. So when you Quit being vegan. It's going to take you two years to build half your cell membranes with the right fats and it's going to take another two years to get to 75%. And you're going to need basically overdoses of vitamin E during that time. Kava will probably help you with the inflammation that you got from eating. None of the right kinds of saturated, but that's kind of how it, how it works. Let's see. Most budget friendly way to benefit from your kava for sleep. This is from Dana in Austin. So what do you think about that?

Most budget friendly way?

How little can you get away with? What time would you use it, which form, all that kind of stuff?

Okay, so depending on the product, I would say if you use the Kavaplex oil, which you're getting on average of about 30 dosages at one dropper full per bottle, I would always start just at one dropper full. Whenever you get it, you're going to get it's full spectrum. So we don't necessarily always use kavalactone dosages or amounts as an accurate representation of the potency because it's really about that Entourage thing with kava. But with one dropper full of the oil, you're getting about 75 milligrams of kavalactones plus other constituents, which gives it the full array of effects. And that's a good place to start. So you're going to have, if you use one dropper full, right, you know, probably about one to two hours before bed, then that's probably going to be the most economical way that you could start while still getting a good amount of the effects that you would want to get and then go up from there. 2, 3, 4 droppers full if you wish. But that's going to give you a 30 day supply right there. So.

So that's probably the best way. Is the Kavaplex oil.

Yes.

Here's a question from vsrv. I have no idea why that makes me think it must be from Russia. It just kind of sounds Russian. But the question is a little bit about advanced biohacker and by the Russians are amazingly good biohackers. Whether or not VSRV is from wherever. But kava plus gaba, which is just the amino acid, not phenibut plus dlpa, which is dlanine. Good combination or bad combination for sleep. That's kind of an advanced sleep stack right there.

Yeah. You know, so it's going to be a dopamine precursor primarily. And then Gaba is going to be, you know, providing gaba, which are two pathways that kava already addresses. So not as much the DLPA for on the sleep side of things, probably definitely the GABA with the kava on the sleep side. If you took it during the earlier part of the day, you wanted to get more of the mood boosting effects and the nootropic effects. Kava is an MAO B, so it's going to prevent that excess dopamine that's being produced from being broken down, and you're given that amino acid, you know, the phenylalanine that's in there to sort of boost it. So that's a good combination there. And then the GABA is a good combination for the sleep side. So the GABA and the kava probably later in the day. The DLPA and the kava probably earlier in the day.

Okay, that. That makes good sense. DLPA is often a morning thing. Some people need more dopamine to sleep. So if DLPA works for your sleep, it's like, it's pretty personalized on that front, I would say.

Not always stimulating. It's. Yeah.

So, all right, does kava. This is from Travel Love. Does kava have negative effects on the stomach? Like, is it acidic or something like that?

So the only negative effects that we see from kava on the stomach are through the traditional preparation when you don't filter out the sort of fibers and the tannins, and especially if you get the wrong strains that have these defense alkaloids in them, these lectin like compounds that are even stronger than lectin. So that can be egregious to the stomach from an acidic standpoint? No. Whenever you process it like we are, we never really see any negative effects in the stomach, especially in the concentrations that we use with it.

Okay. Antonio says, why would you use drops of kava oil over powder?

So if he's talking about powder, like the traditional prep that you would squeeze into a strainer bag, it's really just for versatility, ease of use, and to get out sort of what I just described. Those excess plant root parts and tannins that can cause some roughage in the stomach as well. So it's to mitigate any of the negative symptoms and to allow you to have it in a more versatile, easy to use form.

Okay. So versatility. I actually like the oil a lot better. I've never been a big fan of just like straight up kava tea. A lot of time I don't feel fantastic from a gut perspective afterwards. It depends. Again, on what you're getting. One of the issues I found just formulating for bulletproof. And over the years, if you're taking a jungle product from a moist environment that's been dried somewhere and got sent somewhere else and was stored somewhere, mycotoxins can be an issue. And testing is not required. There's actually testing for mold, what's in there? But whether toxins formed earlier, it oftentimes these are parts per billion parts per million levels. For instance, I looked at selling a mock up product that I was putting together and I tested like the highest end one I could find on the market as a supplier. And it was like 13 parts per million of aflatoxin. It was legal to sell, but I'm like, I'm not selling that. So one of the reasons I don't like so like kind of random powders is that you don't know what you're getting in the mushroom space. There's tons of people selling kind of cheap powders that are mostly like essentially the roots that aren't very effective and they just make your coffee taste bad if you put it in there, but you don't get the kick. But the type of extract, whether it's kava, whether it's cbd, whether it's anything like that, when you pull it out, there's things you get with alcohol, things you get with heat, there's things you get with fat. And if you pull those out and throw away the rest. Well, we've been spending a huge amount of time as humans learning how to cook, which is how you detoxify your food so you can eat it, which is pretty cool.

Exactly. The key is pulling that stuff out without damaging it. Right. That's something that we really had to dial to get rid of those potential biological toxins.

That was why I had you on the show on Bulletproof Radio. And if you guys are listening, if you go to bulletproof Radio, just Google Bulletproof Radio kava. You'll find the show right away. We go into it because it's actually fascinating how kava's made, where it comes from and just the science of getting it right. And the same thing goes in the CBD space. Like different strains of cannabis do different things to you and different extraction technologies do different things. So what I'm finding is it's not like, oh, I just like bought some and I, you know, threw it in some hot water and there you go. And yeah, you can make a mushroom tea or a kava tea or whatever that way. But if your results vary Widely, it's like, is ditch weed the same as kush? Probably not. Anyone who's tried both would know. All right, question here. How is kava? It's definitely not the same as kratom, which people are asking, but are there any relationships between the two?

No, Kratom is actually. It's a species called Mitragina speciosa and it's a plant based opioid that doesn't cause respiratory depression, but it can elicit a tolerance and withdrawal process a little bit worse than coffee at its worst, which is not that bad, but it still can be a little bit egregious. It's not like a tonic substance. It's more like an acutely medicinal substance that people use to get off of opiates. So it, it helps a lot with opiate withdrawal as where kava helps a lot with benzodiazepine alcohol withdrawal, Kava helps with all of them because it calms things down. But yeah, so those are the main, main differences there.

Okay, so basic pharmacology, stuff like that. So if you're trying to get off your benzos, kava could be a good thing. What if you're someone who really benefits from benzos? Is kava going to activate some of the same receptors?

Yes, it activates the exact same receptors and more, but without muddling up your brain chemistry, which happens in many cases with benzos. Right. So it actually clears your mind at the same time as sort of enhancing those GABA receptors. And it doesn't downregulate and deplete, you know, these pharmaceutical drugs kind of work by releasing your stores of these neurotransmitters, kind of using them up. And so you have to take more over time. Kava kind of gives to your system, so it's like repleting it at the same time as washing over your system and giving you the therapeutic effects. So a lot of people, myself included, are finding that kava is a great off ramp to those things so that they don't get the long term side effects from taking benzos. They get a lot of the strengths and virtually none of the weaknesses.

I love that question from mmwawa. I'm totally saying these names on because there's no more names left on Instagram. Looks like it's a. She probably says, I've gotten a mouth numbing feeling from drinking kava tea, like getting a local anesthesia from the dentist. What is that caused by?

Yeah, so that's the kavalectones interaction with your nerves. It only lasts a couple minutes. Or so it's a totally benign process. It lasts a very short period of time. It's actually kind of interesting and cool. It's a really interesting process. It has to do with the inhibition of the nerves, but it's totally benign, sort of natural process.

Okay, cool. I've gotten that from Mate de Coca, which is coca leaf tea, which you can get down in South America. And that's a totally different set of actions that are probably not legal in the US But I did years ago when I went down there, I came over the border and I found I had a big bag of coca leaves in my pocket that I just forgot that I had. But fortunately, no one saw them because I don't think you can do that much. Question from Lisa. Lisa, red wine. She says, do I get the fog when I wake up? I actually used to wake up with horrible brain fog, and I don't at all anymore. That's why, like, I'm doing the sleep challenge to teach people how to get a good night's sleep. I usually wake up even before the alarm. It's. It's pretty amazing. I don't think that every possible. But what you do before bedtime directly affects whether you get brain fog in the morning and whether you have mold in your house affects it. So one thing I am doing before bed that helps is I do two dropper fulls of Kavaplex. And guys, I'm relatively. I like to. Can you show off your bicep with your own phone? I'm relatively fit. New York Times says I'm almost muscular. I'm about £210. I'm 6 4. And so given my size, my metabolic rate, I burn about 3,000 calories a day because my metabolism works differently than most people's because I hacked it. So for me, two dropperfuls is good. You might not need two dropperfuls. You might only need one if you're a normal size and weight and normal metabolism person. Oh, I'm getting some more questions from passions of the cats. Interactions with SSRI antidepressants.

So there are no known counter indications, right, that we see in the literature or that we've seen anecdotally within our patient population, doctor's population. But it's always one of those things. You've got to consult your physician before stacking these things. It's just something that we really need to tell people because I can't make any recommendations of two or two not to take it. But there's no known counter indication we've Seen lots of patients that have used it in the process of transitioning off, and we have seen tremendous success with that. Almost anything that elates brain chemistry from a pharmaceutical standpoint, kava kind of helps prop up that system and lower the limbic system activity or the stress response that's overactivated when trying to get off of them. So it's something that a lot of people experiment with as an off ramp from those things or along with them.

That's a beautiful answer there. Now, I think everyone who's listening has realized that you're a biohacker who knows more than about kava. Jack Plumlee just joined. We're talking about kava, which is a root and a tea that people take. I think it's going to be the next CBD oil. It's a traditional thing that people use to relax. So what I would suggest, you guys should definitely follow Tru Kava. I would. I like the Cobbleplex. I really did notice on the podcast, I drank one of the shots for the first time. I really did notice the effect of that. It was. It was more powerful. So I would say definitely, definitely give it a shot. And do you have some kind of a special thing you want to give people? We didn't plan this. I just planned to talk to you because people were popular. But do you have some sort of, like, give them. Give them a discount so that they'll pick some up because people are watching the dollars today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys can enter day 15 at checkout and get 15% off.

I think I've got Dave 15. I should have probably known that. Anyway, so you guys can save some money there. I'm going to type that here for you, Dave. 15. Code Coderucaba. And, guys, if you've just never tried the stuff at all, pick up the shots because they're very noticeable. Just try a couple of them and then get the oil. I think for sleep. It's very portable. It's small. It doesn't have a strong taste. It's actually less of a taste than, like, CBD oil or something like that. And you just. Just put it on your tongue, drink it, you'll be fine. Try it blending into your bulletproof coffee. It's actually pretty cool to do. It doesn't change the flavor, but there's like a smoothness that comes to how you feel from it. And I just. I think this is a very interesting plant medicine that's been around for a very long time that's worthy of our attention, respect, and frankly, it's probably more worthy than this incredible obsession with cannabis, right? So look, endocannabinoid receptors, CBD oil, good thing. But my God, just because we weren't allowed to smoke it in high school doesn't mean that, like, you really need a CBD oil rice cake. Like, people are going a little bit crazy on that stuff. Some people don't feel one brand, they feel another. I think kava is worth your attention. Try it. And if it pushes your buttons, some people are actually serotonin dominant, right? And if you're one of those people, then you probably are gonna really benefit from this because you're the kind of person who would just go like, benzos would be like, life changing and addictive as all hell for you. So you probably shouldn't go there for stress. But if the kava modulates those areas, like, that's kind of a cool setup. So, like, you just give it a shot. And if it's worth it to you, and all biohacks are like that, you try it. Did your ring tell you it was better? Did you wake up without the brain fog? Did you wake up feeling like yourself and like, wow, like, okay, it was worth it. The amount of money and time and energy that took me to put this into my body. Did I get more out of it? And if so, I think I'm going to do this for another couple months. And it's the same with every supplement. And just because it worked for your husband, your wife, your friend, for me, it doesn't mean it's going to work for you. But I think kava is high enough up there on the usability and on the reliability scale that most people feel something. And if it's something you needed to feel, maybe it belongs in your stack. That's why I'm sharing the knowledge I feel.

And I speak from a place. I mean, this whole project and my relationship with kava came out of my own tremendous pain. Years of being autoimmune sick and having seizures and being in this perpetual state of intense anxiety. I tried medical cannabis, I tried every pharmaceutical is heavily addicted to benzodiazepines, and finding kava was just in the right forms. There's a lot of parallels between Dave, you're in I stories of like, you were sick, you were metabolically destroyed, and you came across a type of coffee, you fine tuned it, it wasn't in the market, so you had the passion to bring it to the market because it actually worked. And I from experience on this, and then we use the science to fill in the gaps and things, but, you know, the market needs this. And it's. It's a perfect. It's in that perfect zone of tolerability and therapeutic action, lack of side effects. It's in a league of its own. It really is. I mean, it's amazing stuff that the world needs for sure.

All right, guys, I am going to wish you a wonderful day. Thank you for joining in. And if you haven't heard the podcast, listen to the podcast. If you haven't tried any kava ever, try Tru Kava. They're going to give you 15% off. Code day 15. Thanks, guys.

T? R U cava.

Not T?

R U E O.

That's not wrong. T? R U cava. All right.

It's spelled right. Like, just. Just some people get it wrong sometimes.

Okay, good deal. Thanks, guys. Bye.