Kava Research New paper: The biosynthetic origin of psychoactive kavalactones in kava

[DrJknows]

See,
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-019-0474-0 & https://amp.wbur.org/commonhealth/2019/08/02/mit-scientists-kava-whitehead-kavalactones
I thought this might of general interest...

 

[kasa_balavu]

This study has been discussed here .
But thanks for that second article. It's a great read and it's awesome to see some of the kava they studied at MIT:

Caption: Various kava products purchased from Amazon are being tested by Jing-Ke Weng's lab. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)

Nice to see they got a comment from Dr. Lebot. His view seems to be pretty much in line with what @Henry said in the previous discussion thread.

 

[kastom_lif]

In case the articles go offline in the future, or for tl;dr purposes, here is what Dr. Lebot said:

(Weng lab's new research is) very valuable work scientifically, very fascinating.

Kava is like a cocktail of different molecules with different properties interacting and having synergy with each other, which produces this very relaxing effect that kava is used for.

In the evening, you could have a pill of kavalactones if you want. But to me, it sounds more interesting to have the natural beverage, kava, which will produce the same effect.

On the other hand, what Weng's team have done is really useful, because it pushes the limits of kava science further, illuminating how the plant gets its unique properties.