What are the advantages and benefits of drinking kombucha?
Is kombuchati good for you? It’s one of my first videos. It was featured in a blog entry entitled “NutritionFacts.org: The First Month.” There, they were amazed at how the video reached nearly 100,000 people. In my video you can see the side effects of Kombucha below and at 0:20. Is that bad for you? We are now honored to reach over 100,000 people a day.
That first Kombucha video featured a report published in the Journal Intensive Care Medicine of “Kombucha Tea Toxicity Cases” in which a young man became acidotinous coma. The authors state that “while kombucha tea is considered a healthy elixir, the limited evidence currently available raises considerable concern that it could pose a serious health risk. We need to be discouraged as this consumption of tea can be associated with life-threatening lactic acidosis.” And this was just one of several case reports of “severe and sometimes fatal liver (liver) dysfunction and lactic acidic disease, which are close to ingestion.”
For example, in Iowa, there were two cases of severe metabolic acidosis, including one death. It also triggered a life-threatening autoimmuscular disease that required emergency surgery and was “related to consumption of fermented kombucha drinks.” Another patient presented with shortness of breath, shaking, and movement disorder “after consumption of tea or other medications,” and middle-aged women complained of molting, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, headache and neck pain,” and her symptoms recurred upon tea redistribution. After stopping the kombucha.
Why these sporadic cases? Maybe some unusual toxins that occurred in a particular batch. So, since it’s a fermented product, it could have only had some contamination by bad bugs, like when people applied kombucha to their skin because they were told they had the “magical healing power.” Instead, what it had was charcoal thrax. So, such reports were rare, but a decade ago concluded that we should stick to foods that probably don’t put people in coma. But what about the risks and benefits? Maybe kombucha is worth it. After all, it is “a reputation for curing cancer,” “eliminating wrinkles,” “even bringing back gray hair back to its original color,” and “sold by alternative and natural remedies healers all over the United States.”
“Currently, kombucha is being praised alternately as the “ultimate health drink” or as an “unsafe drug tea.” “It is argued that it is a “universal, great drug… a potion that improves recognition and concentration, slimming, purification, regeneration, and extension of life”? It’s “Potion or Poison?
In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, some medical research was conducted by recognized physicians who confirmed all sorts of beneficial effects, as seen below and at 2:55.
I couldn’t wait to read them. Dufrense and Farnworth were cited and when they went to the paper, they saw the same claim and cited Allen 1998. When I went to that source, my video found out that the quote was a random Kombucha website at 3:10, as shown below. What do you guess? The website has been deprecated since 2001, and the “many of the kombucha information” posted came from comments on several mailing lists.
Finally, in 2003 a systematic review of published clinical evidence was conducted. “The main finding of this systematic review appears to be a complete lack of efficacy data. No clinical studies on the efficacy of this remedy were found.” There are only these warning stories, and there are cases reports of these. Therefore, based on these data, it was concluded that the largely undetermined benefits do not outweigh the documented risks of kombucha. Therefore, it is not recommended for therapeutic use. “But it returned in 2003.
“The literature on non-human subjects argues for many health benefits meaning “non-human” meaning mice and rats.” Human clinical trials are needed, but there are no contrasting human studies yet. (In my video, I found one uncontrolled study aimed at showing a significant decrease in fasting and post-grain glucose levels among type 2 diabetes patients, as seen below.)
“Nevertheless,” there are no controlled trials, but “currently, there is a broad belief that the product promotes health,” so this extreme disparity remains between science and belief. “There is absolutely no compelling clinical evidence. The (health) claims against it are incredibly far from them. In such extreme cases, health professionals should prevent consumers from selling (and paying) relief.
Doctor’s notes:
Friday’s Favorite: What’s your best drink? Watch the video.
