Ritika Pratap 
[File Photo]
Pacific Island scientists have been given a large grant to run a study trial on the use of the traditional kava preparation and kava ceremony for treating post-traumatic stress disorder in New Zealand.
Believing it could help treat PTSD and other trauma in soldiers and veterans, police officers, and corrections facility staff, the two scientists want to revise the reputation of kava, which was damaged by a pharmaceutical rush into the product some years ago.
Fijian descent Doctor Apo Aporosa, and Doctor Sione Vaka from Tonga have received $1 million from the Health Research Council to combine the kava drink with the traditional ceremony of conversation.
Dr Aporosa told the NZ Herald that they’re going to spend a million dollars to prove what traditional Pacific knowledge has been trying to tell Europeans for the last 200 years.
Their study will take two groups of people and give them both the whole kava drink plus the talanoa, referred to as “the full package” while another group will receive just the talanoa, and another group just the kava lactones—the active ingredient in the plant.
Like most indigenous populations, New Zealand’s Māori population suffers from higher rates of stress, trauma, and anxiety than the national average, and the Council believes that the Kava ceremony is the most sensible way to fulfil this unmet need.
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