Kudzu, Overtaking the South, May Reduce Binge Drinking...

Kudzu, the fast growing vine...

introduced from China and Japan at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, has few natural enemies, and the speed with which it covers and transforms telephone poles, trees, junked cars and abandoned rural outhouses into weird shapes has inspired tales told around campfires: Kudzu has been known to pluck small children from the back of moving pick-ups, or even to swallow slow-moving halfbacks at night football games.

When I was a kid, we noticed fields of kudzu where the vine grew over everything, including trees and telephone poles and nothing else at all could grow there.

Besides it prowess for growing, it also may result in lower alcohol intake. Maybe that is why people here don't drink as heartily as in the West.

"There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from China that kudzu could be useful, but this is the first documented evidence that it could reduce drinking in humans," said Mr. Overstreet, who described Mr. Lukas' work as "groundbreaking."

Mr. Lukas recruited 14 men and women in their 20s to spend four 90-minute sessions consuming beer and watching television. Researchers selected people who said they regularly consumed three to four drinks per day. After the first session, some subjects received capsules of kudzu, others a placebo.

There is absolutley no Kudzu in Wanchai.