Kava may lower blood pressure. It also may interfere with blood clotting, it shouldn't be used by people with bleeding disorders. Unless you are susceptible to dangerously low blood pressure, I think you have nothing to worry about.Unfortunately I have found many doctors to be ignorant of non-pharmacuetical substances, and sometimes have a reactionary and incurious attitude- this is true in particular of kava, where there were problems in the past with non-root-kava supplements causing liver problems. Some doctors will read "kava" and "liver damage" once in the same sentence and forever advise against all kava use. They aren't interested in hearing that using products from the root only is very safe. The American health system is a miserable mess and I personally don't trust doctors anymore (I used to work in healthcare) I agree if you have a good relationship with your doctor and can have reasonable discussions with him/her, by all means talk about this with them, but I wouldn't accept anything any one doctor says as the last word on the subject. Just use some google-fu and read up on the subject. The information may not be perfect, but no source is.