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Alcohol Flush Reaction associated with Kava Consumption

Bert07

Me like da kava
In a member's post some time ago (nheog's I think) - I said after usage between alcohol and kava, for some reason I get a flush while drinking alcohol after having drunk kava (a day or so in between). Having said that, before tonight I didn't think much of it..however, now after some research I've learned a lot more on this occurrence. It seems an alcohol flush reaction is caused by a decrease in your liver's ability to metabolize ethanol into acetaldehyde and so on and so forth. Which leaves me curious as to what kava actually inhibits in the liver to cause this in the first place. Doing a very quick and simple search I came up with these sources - though they don't go into much depth ( I didn't put much time into it yet but I'll be looking into it further). If anybody has an interest, feel free to share more info! Again, the reason for an alcohol flush is more or less easy to understand except the cause from kava usage isn't.
I suppose I'll be looking at logical theories rather than documented research but it all still helps!
http://www.healthworks.my/alcohol-flush-syndrome/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction
 
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nhoeg

Kava Manliness
Hi Bert07.

I still have great interest in this subject, because I do drink a lot of alcohol on weekends, and therefore very often get a flush. Like you, I am also curious about which impact kava has on this. From my personal experiences the last couple of weekends, I have concluded that I need about 2-3 days without kava before drinking alcohol. I've also noticed, that when this flush-reaction occurs, I get a general feeling of discomfort and too much heat in my body. However, when I go outside in the cold night and get fresh air, all my symptoms (including red blops on face) disappears.
 

Zac Imiola (Herbalist)

Kava Connoisseur
Yeah this is definitley fascinating to me as well.
My girlfriend and I are going over to canada for her 19th birthday to drink and gamble t the casino. Lol so I haven't had kava since about 11am yesterday.. a good amount of time to ingest alcohol at about 10pm or so tonight. Im hoping by then I should be all good to have 4 or 5 or 6 beers lol.
 
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