Kombucha science and research in plain English.
Articles which indicate or claim that kombucha is an antioxidant.
Exploring some research into the antioxidant activities of different teas.
As you probably know very well, kombucha is made from a base of sugary tea.
In the articles I’ve already covered on this site we’ve discovered that the number and strength of antioxidants in kombucha is greater than what is found in the normal tea, and we also know that green tea kombucha has a higher level of antioxidant activity than black tea kombucha.
What I haven’t looked into on this website yet are any papers about the antioxidant activities of different types of tea.
The following article is adapted from the ‘Health Claims’ chapter in my book Simply Kombucha.
Kombucha has a long history of being promoted as a health drink. Almost every blog or article I read about kombucha has a list of medical complaints or illnesses that it is supposed to heal or at least help with.
All the early kombucha books from the 1990s are full of hints and tips about using kombucha to heal wounds, beat arthritis, or combat hair-loss. Even AIDS was claimed to respond to this amazing “miracle mushroom”.
On closer reading I found that the authors of those books also tended to speculate about cosmic rays and crop circles, making me a touch skeptical about their medical opinions, no matter how expert they were in the art of brewing kombucha. So I looked online to see what the current state of opinion was about kombucha’s healing powers.
Continue reading “Is Kombucha Healthy? A general introduction.”
Drinking kombucha could improve your heart risk factors, and increase the odds of full recovery from a heart attack
Did you know that drinking kombucha could help protect against heart attack?
Well, now you do. 🙂
Today’s research article demonstrates that, in rats at least, a daily dose of kombucha leads to higher HDL cholesterol (the good kind), lower triglycerides, and a better outcome if a heart attack does happen.
Today’s paper is similar to last week’s, and indeed was referenced by last week’s authors as evidence that kombucha can counteract the effects of oxidative stress.
Continue reading “Kombucha prevents kidney damage from an industrial solvent. In rats.”
Wrapping my head around the ins and outs of this week’s paper has taken me a bit more time than usual. There is a lot going on here, but come along with me and we’ll go on a journey of discovery together. If anything still isn’t completely clear, please leave a comment and I’ll have a go at re-wording or explaining things.
This is a paper where the initial results look awesome, but on closer inspection need to be treated with care.
Continue reading “Effect of kombucha on rats with drug-induced type 1 diabetes.”