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Tinctures vs Aqueous Extract

AndrewG

Kava Curious
Aloha all,

I'm sure this has been bought up. Although, as an herbalist so many in the community are creating alcohol extracts of kava. Most recently an 18yr old plant which in my opinion is so much better via traditional preperation. I think the testing methods are not standardized enough to say alcohol extracts are completely safe. I would think, depending on variety the alcohol would pull out more of the flavokavains and other non-pleasant constituents than the kavalactones and the other main constituents. I'm sure both are present, but to what degree? I once met an herbalist, well respected, who was telling me from all their testing it's been proven safe. I have no issues drinking kava by aqueous preperation though I have always been weary if tinctures of kava.

With these test I cannot definitively say extracting roots with alcohol is okay. More of my hesitation is the neoliberalization of kava and changing it's traditional use.
  • Acetone testing is quite close to informing us of noble varieties.
  • HPTLC need replicable samples
  • Microscopy.
  • HPLC
I think we need more testing on the alcohol method. What are your thoughts?

I understand it could preserve the roots longer, though if they're dried out anyways regardless they can be powdered and used likely in the same amount of time. No
 

The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
Aloha all,

I'm sure this has been bought up. Although, as an herbalist so many in the community are creating alcohol extracts of kava. Most recently an 18yr old plant which in my opinion is so much better via traditional preperation. I think the testing methods are not standardized enough to say alcohol extracts are completely safe. I would think, depending on variety the alcohol would pull out more of the flavokavains and other non-pleasant constituents than the kavalactones and the other main constituents. I'm sure both are present, but to what degree? I once met an herbalist, well respected, who was telling me from all their testing it's been proven safe. I have no issues drinking kava by aqueous preperation though I have always been weary if tinctures of kava.

With these test I cannot definitively say extracting roots with alcohol is okay. More of my hesitation is the neoliberalization of kava and changing it's traditional use.
  • Acetone testing is quite close to informing us of noble varieties.
  • HPTLC need replicable samples
  • Microscopy.
  • HPLC
I think we need more testing on the alcohol method. What are your thoughts?

I understand it could preserve the roots longer, though if they're dried out anyways regardless they can be powdered and used likely in the same amount of time. No
Ethanolic extracts of noble kavas have been studied for a while now, and seem somewhat safe even at doses approaching 75mg/kg in vivo (rat model). Acetonic extracts of non-noble kavas are where the problem arose. Where I would love to see more research is in supercritical extraction such as CO2 or butane.

Acetonic tests for nobility are what I would consider viable right now.

"The colorimetric test, although it does not represent an accurate quantification of the FKs, it gives a fairly good indication of their content in the kava products"

Lebot, Vincent & Kaoh, Juliane & Legendre, Laurent. (2020). High-Throughput Analysis of Flavokawains in Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f.) Roots, Chips and Powders and Correlations with Their Acetonic Extracts Absorbance. Food Analytical Methods. 13. 10.1007/s12161-020-01781-9.
 

Zaphod

Kava Lover
Aloha all,

I'm sure this has been bought up. Although, as an herbalist so many in the community are creating alcohol extracts of kava. Most recently an 18yr old plant which in my opinion is so much better via traditional preperation. I think the testing methods are not standardized enough to say alcohol extracts are completely safe. I would think, depending on variety the alcohol would pull out more of the flavokavains and other non-pleasant constituents than the kavalactones and the other main constituents. I'm sure both are present, but to what degree? I once met an herbalist, well respected, who was telling me from all their testing it's been proven safe. I have no issues drinking kava by aqueous preperation though I have always been weary if tinctures of kava.

With these test I cannot definitively say extracting roots with alcohol is okay. More of my hesitation is the neoliberalization of kava and changing it's traditional use.
  • Acetone testing is quite close to informing us of noble varieties.
  • HPTLC need replicable samples
  • Microscopy.
  • HPLC
I think we need more testing on the alcohol method. What are your thoughts?

I understand it could preserve the roots longer, though if they're dried out anyways regardless they can be powdered and used likely in the same amount of time. No
I would love to see a controlled experiment using the same source material comparing different extraction methods on overall KL and FK content and maybe other constituents as well like pipermethystine .
 

AndrewG

Kava Curious
Ethanolic extracts of noble kavas have been studied for a while now, and seem somewhat safe even at doses approaching 75mg/kg in vivo (rat model). Acetonic extracts of non-noble kavas are where the problem arose. Where I would love to see more research is in supercritical extraction such as CO2 or butane.

Acetonic tests for nobility are what I would consider viable right now.

"The colorimetric test, although it does not represent an accurate quantification of the FKs, it gives a fairly good indication of their content in the kava products"

Lebot, Vincent & Kaoh, Juliane & Legendre, Laurent. (2020). High-Throughput Analysis of Flavokawains in Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f.) Roots, Chips and Powders and Correlations with Their Acetonic Extracts Absorbance. Food Analytical Methods. 13. 10.1007/s12161-020-01781-9.
Thank you. Yes Lebot showed me the test a number of years ago. I have been out if the loop scientifically for a couple of years. Getting my feet wet again.
 

AndrewG

Kava Curious
I would love to see a controlled experiment using the same source material comparing different extraction methods on overall KL and FK content and maybe other constituents as well like pipermethystine .
Now that would be cool
 

AndrewG

Kava Curious
Ethanolic extracts of noble kavas have been studied for a while now, and seem somewhat safe even at doses approaching 75mg/kg in vivo (rat model). Acetonic extracts of non-noble kavas are where the problem arose. Where I would love to see more research is in supercritical extraction such as CO2 or butane.

Acetonic tests for nobility are what I would consider viable right now.

"The colorimetric test, although it does not represent an accurate quantification of the FKs, it gives a fairly good indication of their content in the kava products"

Lebot, Vincent & Kaoh, Juliane & Legendre, Laurent. (2020). High-Throughput Analysis of Flavokawains in Kava (Piper methysticum Forst. f.) Roots, Chips and Powders and Correlations with Their Acetonic Extracts Absorbance. Food Analytical Methods. 13. 10.1007/s12161-020-01781-9.
I know there has been a lot of research on the noble kavas of Vanuatu. However, I'm curious how this would look on Hawaiian, Fijian or the Pohnpeian varieties.
 

The Kap'n

The Groggy Kaptain (40g)
KavaForums Founder
I know there has been a lot of research on the noble kavas of Vanuatu. However, I'm curious how this would look on Hawaiian, Fijian or the Pohnpeian varieties.
Do you have reason to believe they would return different results? There have been some studies that used Hawaiian strains instead of ones from Vanuatu and I don't recall them being any different qualitatively.
 
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