The highs and lows of kombucha

Some foods have the right balance of nutrients to be called super foods but researchers have recently made a surprising discovery – kombucha has the opposite effect.

In a series of controlled trials, scientists at the Institute of Applied Nutritional Medicine tested a range of everyday foods and beverages to study a potentially wide range of previously undocumented effects. 

One arm of the test asked volunteers to drink a litre of traditional kombucha every day for a period of 5 days including on the test day. ‘Overall the kombucha group performed worse in recall and reasoning tests than the control group,’ stated Dr Falsch who went on to explain that the signal from the data was very clear and that more study will be required to understand the mechanism. 

Cognitive scientist Dr Rachel Meeseeks has further analysed the results and explains that ‘kombucha does not affect motor neurons in the way that we see for intoxicants such as alcohol, otherwise we would have found the effect sooner’.

However, she goes on to say that ‘from these data we can infer that kombucha actually makes people more susceptible to suggestion’.

This surprising result has significant implications for how post-factual narratives establish in the communities where vehement belief in questionable notions seems to spring from nowhere. It’s not all bad though, maybe we can just enjoy a good kombucha and a joint and go on a flight of fancy. ‘I know that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend,’ added Dr Meeseeks.