Combinations - Kava-Kava and Alcohol

[zipoo]

Anybody know anything about mixing these two? As there was a liver scare with kava, might it be worse when drinking?

[Mainio]

Also may I add that kava is well regarded as a substitue for alcohol. Not something that should be combined.

[panchovilla]

I have combined kava with alcohol and it was fine. Kava is really nasty ass shit. Literally, the day after alot of drinking kava and alky when you shit it is nasty. If you are using the bulk product you have to use some sort of oil to bind to the active ingredient so you gotta shit out all that oil and nasty smellin' ass kava shit. Kava still makes me gag just thinking about the nasty ass taste. Kava does have good effects though, but it is not worth enduring that nasty ass taste. It is much better just to drink kratom it taste good. and no need for fucking oil.brink brack bruecka. Edited by: panchovilla

[blue_eyes]

Hey guys....

Just thought I would include a post here.

SWIM doesn't have much in the house right now. So, after SWIM smoked all the pot, and drank a few Cougars, she thought..... "what's left in the house???"

Well, the only thing SWIM had was some kava kava. So she drank a some down mixed in water (SWIM finds it easier to swallow it down if you drink the mixture the moment you mix water with it, or whatever liquid you prefer. The water doesn't absorb the flavour of the Kava as much).

So, SWIM will see what happens after about 6 drinks of cougar and a dose of Kava. I'll check back in later to let you now how SWIM went.


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hi again.....

mmmmm SWIM has started feeling nice.

She ended up having another half dose of kava about 20 minutes after the first. Its paying off

Things feel like "soft focus" for SWIM.... there's less precision with movement than when SWIM is on E (she gets entranced with dance, and executes her moves with precision. Dancing is an art form for SWIM when she's on E, but thats another subject. Hey, this is also making SWIM a bit chatty)

She feels laid back and groovy.

mmmmmmmm she's enjoying it


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Ok, so SWIM feels a bit yuk in the tummy.....

But hey, she feels good. She just heard some of the young guys from across the road walking around talking in the street (at 1 am). SWIM has heard them before and never done a thing, but this time, she waved through the window, then went outside and talked to them.

SWIM is definately feeling a sense of connectedness and mellowedness (is that a word?)

um.....


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SWIM is very much in soft focus mode now

mmm mellow

[Forthesevenlakes]

Originally Posted by zipoo

anybody know anything baout mixing these two. as there was a liver scare with kava might it be worse when drinking. what about kava and other chemicls?

To SWIM's knowledge, the kava causing liver damage was something that was observed in long-term, heavy users of the drug, and was not something that was seen in the casual partaker. Does anyone know more about this?

SWIM has never heard anything specific about not combining kava and alcohol, but the effects of kava are so much like a standard downer (at least for SWIM) that he'd be reluctant to mix it with any others. Plus he felt more relaxed during his kava experiences than he would on alcohol, so alcohol just seems a bit gratuitous.

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by Mainio

Also may I add that kava is well regarded as a substitue for alcohol. Not something that should be combined.

It is true that Kava is regarded as a substitute for alcohol, both culturally in traditional Kava-using communities in the Pacific and also by a number of researchers who looked into this specific aspect of Kava use. There are a few studies looking at Piper Methysticum as a possible alternative to alcoholism (the use of the word 'alternative' was by the researchers, I don't know why they picked it instead of 'treatment'). This doesn't mean that you can't mix the two however.

Kava may be an alcohol substitute but that doesn't infer anything about its pharmacological effecs and possible synergistic effects with alcohol. It may have something to do with Kava's anxiolytic effects, or that in combination with the other effects of the substance such as the euphoria and sedative effects. While somewhat similar subjectively to what one may experience with different doses of alcohol, these feelings aren't created by the same pharmacological mechanisms, which is something to keep in mind.

Originally Posted by Forthesevenlakes

To SWIM's knowledge, the kava causing liver damage was something that was observed in long-term, heavy users of the drug, and was not something that was seen in the casual partaker. Does anyone know more about this?

ُThe liver damage issue was greatly misrepresented. Studies on it that supposedly showed conclusive evidence of liver damage were shown to be biased. Later studies looking at multiple facets of Piper Methysticum found liver to no risk of liver damage. The accusations appear to be unfounded, though one study found two cases of yet unexplained hepatitis in individuals using kava for therapeutic purposes. This could end up being unrelated or possibly as a result of the preparation of the kava itself (by the manufacturer not the individuals). So far the evidence is heavily not in favor of kava causing any liver damage, especially looking at the extremely low incidence rate of side effects and the abscence of liver problems among traditional longterm kava users in a native setting.

Originally Posted by Forthesevenlakes

SWIM has never heard anything specific about not combining kava and alcohol, but the effects of kava are so much like a standard downer (at least for SWIM) that he'd be reluctant to mix it with any others. Plus he felt more relaxed during his kava experiences than he would on alcohol, so alcohol just seems a bit gratuitous.

The effects of Kava aren't especially like a downer per se, but Kava does act as a sedative in some ways, among other things. Kava doesn't act like most anxiolytics however, so I think its interactions with alcohol would be quite different than say alcohol. I don't know if any research has been done on this. I'll try to dig up some articles or if that doesn't work I'll look more at the pharmacology later and try to see if any physiological effects exist that could be risky in combination with the effects of alcohol.


One of swim's friends borrowed some kava extract liquigels (84%) from him as swim found them to be rather ineffective compared to other forms of kava available. The friend had been drinking moderately and took six of the pill followed by some more drinking. He reported experiencing a fairly strong synergy between the two substances, creating a much more euphoric and relaxed feeling of drunkeness along with intensification of some other alcohol effects. Smoking cannabis also reportedly added to this synergy.



Swim may have to mess around a little (and carefully) with alcohol and kava in combination to see what results. Anyone else mix Kava and alcohol before and if so what do you have to say about the mixture?

[Bajeda]

Research relating to alcohol and Kava....


Title: Effect of Kava-Special Extract WS 1490 combined with ethyl alcohol on safety-relevant performance parameters
Author: Herberg, K W
Citation: Blutalkohol. Volume: 30, Issue: 2, Date: 1993 06 01, Pages: 96-105 Year: 1993
Abstract: The Kava-special extract WS 1490 (3 x 100 mg/d over 8 days) was tested in a placebo-controlled randomised double-blind study to establish whether it has any adverse effects on safety-related performance when administered together with ethyl alcohol (0.05% blood alcohol concentration). The study was carried out as a comparison of two independent groups each containing 10 male and 10 female healthy volunteers aged between 18 to 60 years (mean: 40.45 +/- 12.2 years). The batteries of performance tests consisted of seven procedures. It was conducted before treatment without alcohol as well as the 1st, 4th and 8th day of treatment together with alcohol. The results showed no negative multiplicative effects caused by the Kava-special extract WS 1490 together with alcohol. With the concentration test however there was a remarkable advantage of the WS 1490 group at the 4th day of treatment (p < 1%). The collection of well-being data as well as the description of adverse events proved WS 1490 to be well tolerated.



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(Grrrr, below article was too big to upload to the archive, I'll optimize it and upload it as soon as I can so you read the whole thing. Otherwise summary and evaluation is below)

Title: Kavalactones fail to inhibit alcohol dehydrogenase in vitro.
Author: Anke, J
Citation: Phytomedicine. Volume: 13, Issue: 3, Date: 2006 01 23, Pages: 192-5
Abstract: In recent years, Kava kava (Piper methysticum, Forst. f., Piperaceae), a folkloric beverage and popular herbal remedy, has been implicated in a number of liver failure cases. Many hypotheses as to the mechanism of its hepatotoxicity, for example interactions with other co-ingested medication, have been postulated. This present study investigated whether pharmacokinetic interactions between kava constituents and alcohol via alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) inhibition by individual kavalactones might explain its claimed hepatotoxic effects. Four kavalactones, (+/-)-kavain, methysticin, yangonin and desmethoxyyangonin, fail to inhibit ADH in vitro at 1, 10 or 100 microM concentrations.


^^^^^^

Basically alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs) break down alcohols in your body, helping convert ethanol to acetaldehyde, which is immensely important in reducing the toxic effects of alcohol as the acetaldehyde is further converted into a harmless substance called acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Your stomach and liver can only handle so much alcohol due to the limited numbers of these enzymes so its important they work properly. This article is looking at possible potentiation of alcohol toxicity due to its use in conjunction with kava by seeing if kava inhibits these ADHs.

Here is a basic evaluation of what the abstract means quoted from the article itself.

Originally Posted by Anke's Study

Of course these results also do not rule out any pharmacodynamic interactions between kava and alcohol. Jamieson and Duffield (1990), for example, found increased sleeping times and increased mortality in mice when kava was administered in combination with alcohol compared to kava and alcohol alone. In a clinical study, Foo and Lemon (1997) also observed that kava appeared to potentiate impairment of cognition when combined with alcohol. However, in contrast to this, Herberg (1993) could not detect increased impairment in human test subjects when kava was combined with alcohol. These effects are separate to any anticipated hepatic effects of kava either alone or in combination with alcohol.

In summary it is postulated, based on this in vitro study, that the four kavalactones studied do not inhibit ADH and therefore are unlikely to affect alcohol metabolism when kava is taken with alcohol. However, this does not imply that there is no risk for pharmacokinetic interactions between alcohol and kava via other mechanisms. Also, alcohol and kava may interact at a pharmacodynamic level to produce additive or synergistic CNS effects. This however cannot be the explanation for the reported hepatotoxicity with kava.

So at a first glance it doesn't appear that use of kava with alcohol increases risk of hepatoxicity (liver damage).

It also appears from the report that rather than Kava potentiating certain effects of alcohol it may moderate them, which is more keeping with what kava seems to do in conjunction with other substances (this evaluation is from anecdotal reports and experience, not scientific data though). Kava helps to enhance cognitive function somewhat, and at the least doens't impair it, so it may have a moderating effect on the cognitive impairment one normally gets from alcohol, though synergistic CNS effects would be something to watch out for (Or maybe not, see the really short description for an article below). If one's breathing was feeling light or simply different while mixing Kava and Alcohol they should stop consuming both substances immediately!

Still doesn't look damning in regards to the Alcohol - Kava combination.



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As to a slightly more subjective evaluation of the synergistic effects between Alcohol and Kava....


Title: Acute effects of kava, alone or in combination with alcohol, on subjective measures of impairment and intoxication and on cognitive performance.
Author: Foo, H
Citation: Drug Alcohol Rev. Volume: 16, Issue: 2, Date: 1997 10 05, Pages: 147-55
Abstract: Kava (Piper methysticum) and alcohol were administered either separately or in combination to human subjects. Self-reports of their levels of impairment and intoxication were collected, and performance skills on a number of cognitive and visuomotor tests were determined, before and three times after consumption of the experimental drink. Kava alone had no effect on reported condition. In contrast, alcohol produced marked changes in each of the five subjective measures, all of which were in the direction of lowered ability. The combination of these two substances produced even larger negative changes on these measures. In the cognitive tests, kava produced a decrement in performance on Digit Symbol Coding. Alcohol produced a significant decrease in performance on a divided attention test, which was almost entirely on the peripheral, discontinuous component of the test. The combination of kava and alcohol produced an even greater decrease in performance on this test, and in the same component. The present findings suggest that kava alone has little effect on reported condition and cognitive performance, but appears to potentiate both perceived and measured impairment when combined with alcohol.



^^^^^^

So there appears to be a greater acute cognitive impairment from consumption of kava and alcohol than from alcohol consumption alone.

The fact that both measured and perceived impairment were decreased has a few implications. Basically you will probably get stronger subjective effects from alcohol when you consume it with Kava. I don't know what influence Kava may have on side effects of alcohol. Kava may be a good potentiator of alcohol's main effects without especially enhancing many of the more negative side effects. Still not much evidence on that though. One should take care with driving and any other activity requiring direct attention under the influence of this combination however, as while you may be under the legal BAC limit the additional impairment added by the Kava could make it more dangerous to perform such activities.

Keep in mind that the earlier 1993 experiments by Herberg, also with humans, didn't detect such a cognitive impairment.


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Title: A systematic review of the safety of kava extract in the treatment of anxiety.
Author: Stevinson, Clare
Citation: Drug Saf. Volume: 25, Issue: 4, Date: 2002 05 07, Pages: 251-61

^^^^^^^^

From this article I got one interesting tidbit related to this topic.

Originally Posted by Stevinson Study

Controlled trials suggest that kava extracts do not impair cognitive performance and vigilance or potentiate the effects of central nervous system depressants.

This suggests that synergistic effects on the CNS don't appear to emanate from consumption of the Kava - Alcohol combination.



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Thats all I could find so far. I'll try to get full pdfs for the articles I couldn't get, and I'll check around for more articles but I think this is most of the research related to this topic.

As of yet, it appears to be promising. Kava and Alcohol doesn't seem like the most obvious combination but it probably can be used safely if precautions are taken. Risks of excessive depressive CNS effects seems to be dependent on the alcohol intake itself, and I don't think Kava has enough of a effect for it to be a danger without the overly large amount of alcohol itself. Liver toxicity has been an issue since conflicting evidence exists, but recent studies haven't found any good evidence of this, and Kava has no known physiological effects that would accentuate the hepatoxic effects of alcohol. Kava may or may not increase cognitive impairment when combined with alcohol. By itself Piper Methysticum (kava) doesn't decrease cognition and in fact seems to enhance it. Other effects of Kava may interact with the effects of alcohol consumption however, which may influence the overall synergistic effects on cognition.


Basically I don't see any especially high risks involved with attempting this combination besides the lack of in-depth study on it in particular. Just don't make a habit of consuming alcohol and Kava together regularly, and be smart / reasonable / safe when using it.

That taken care of, I'm interested in what the subjective effects of this combination are and how they differ from either substance alone. None of the studies available seemed to look at this much, so any experiences would be appreciated.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Great info thanks

[genaro]

kava = depressant
therefore a heavy dose of kava (which can be quite sedative) with too much alcohol can cause unconsciousness and severe respiratory depression and possibly death.

[Bajeda]

Originally Posted by genaro

kava = depressant
therefore a heavy dose of kava (which can be quite sedative) with too much alcohol can cause unconsciousness and severe respiratory depression and possibly death.

THINK BEFORE YOU POST!



Did you read anything in my posts above? I mentioned CNS depression and its relation to Kava numerous times in the post and explained the relationship the best I could with current info. From almost all the research available on Kava and its effects in combination with alcohol it doesn't appear that the depressive effects of drinking alcohol are enhanced at all from concurrent Kava consumption.


Don't state things as definite fact if you aren't completely knowledgeable as to what you are talking about, or better yet don't ever state things in definite terms when it comes to drugs, as there is always the chance that something new could come up. Thats why even though I don't see much added danger in consuming Kava with Alcohol I still like to stress that care should be taken when attempting to experiment with such a combination, as with any other drug combination.

Just don't pull info out of your ass like the DEA does.

[genaro]

well, I have a friend (which do handle alcohol quite well) which had drink lots of whisky after a strong dose of 60% kava extract. I left him at his home saying I would be back in a few minutes. Which I did, but when ringing at his door, he wouldn't answer, I rang and rang again and called many times his phone as I was worrying and no one would answer. After 20 minutes, he finally opened the door, when I asked, he told me he was unconscious and that's why he didn't open, he said that he was ok, nothing serious. But he did fall unconscious so that's why I think too much kava with too much alcohol can be dangerous. But maybe I'm wrong and it's not that dangerous.

[Bajeda]

I could see the sedative effects of Kava mixing with the depressant effects of Alcohol and making your friend have a nice nap, but from the research I've found it doesn't seem especially likely that Kava would potentiate CNS depressant effects. Drinking a large amount of alcohol in itself isn't the safest thing to do so if you are going to mix any other drug of any kind with it you better be prepared for very different results than expected. As for this thread, I think its safe to say that we are discussing here the combination of Kava with an amount of alcohol that wouldn't cause unconsciousness normally in individuals in many instances.

Again.... Read my posts above carefully, espcially the information from the scientific research. And keep in mind that drinking already dangerous amounts of alcohol and combining with Kava (or anything else) isn't the brightest idea, even if the interactions don't look too risky.

[JapanHorrorUncut]

There's a Kava bar near me, I was talking to the owner and he said that a small amount of Alcohol is fine, but drinking Kava during a night of heavy drinking is alot on your liver and might make you puke.

[KavaKafe]

SWIM owns a kava bar in hawaii and has seen the effects of mixing the two and it isn't pretty. In a study done on rats back in the 90s when even a small amount of kava is mixed with alcohol or a small amount of alcohol is mixed with kava the effects of both are magnified greatly and thus can have unforeseen outcomes. SWIM would highly recommend AGAINST mixing the two. Hawaiians made alcohol from the root of the ti plant but they would NEVER mix kava with the two. Very few participated in the use of alcohol because it caused negative reactions (violence, health issues, rape, etc...), while kava had the opposite effect (peace and unity, medicinal in many ways, love making not rape, etc...) SWIM has seen 4 fights at the Kava Kafe in years past and all cases involved someone drinking alcohol or drinking a combination of kava and alcohol.