WHAT IS KOMBUCHA?
Kombucha is a variety of fermented, lightly effervescent sweetened black or green tea drinks that are commonly intended as functional beverages for their supposed health benefits. Kombucha is produced by fermenting tea using a "symbiotic 'colony' of bacteria and yeast" (SCOBY). Actual contributing microbial populations in SCOBY cultures vary, but the yeast component generally includes Saccharomyces(a probiotic fungus) and other species, and the bacterial component almost always includes Gluconacetobacter xylinus to oxidize yeast-produced alcohols to acetic and other acids.
Kombucha has been promoted with claims that it can treat a wide variety of human illnesses, including AIDS, cancer, and diabetes, and that it provides other beneficial effects such as stimulation of the immune system, boosting the libido, and reversal of gray hair.[3][5][6] However, evidence of kombucha's beneficial effects in humans is absent.
In a 2003 systematic review, Edzard Ernst characterized kombucha as an "extreme example" of an unconventional remedy because of the great disparity between implausible, wide-ranging health claims lacking evidentiary support, and the potential for harm the preparations seem to hold.[2] Ernst concluded that the unsubstantiated list of proposed therapeutic benefits did not outweigh the known risks, and that kombucha should not be recommended for therapeutic use.