#Benefits of synergy kombucha skin#
Its ubiquity in post- Portlandia America has been largely powered by the reverberations of the claims that attracted Patras over 20 years ago: that it supports digestion, metabolism, cell integrity, immunity, appetite control, weight control, liver function, and healthy skin and hair - or as artsy labels put it today, by promises that it will “rejuvenate, restore, revitalize, recharge, rebuild, regenerate, replenish, regain, rebalance, renew.”Ī small fraction of today’s kombucha drinkers consume it in hopes of curing cancer or alleviating psoriasis. It’s on tap at cool coffee shops it’s in your neighbor’s fridge it’s on Entourage and The Mindy Project and Flaked. Some $600 million worth of kombucha was sold last year, peddled everywhere from bodegas to bars to Bed Bath & Beyond. The doctor said that there was no scientific evidence for kombucha’s safety or efficacy, but Patras didn’t need any: Her daughter’s health was proof enough. “She actually reprimanded me,” Patras told me. When she did, the doctor ordered her to stop giving it to Ciara immediately. She waited nearly a year before telling Ciara’s pediatrician about it again.
Patras knew this could be the result of a successful Kasai procedure, but suspected that, somehow, the kombucha was involved. Ciara’s pediatrician objected, but within a few weeks, bile began to drain from her liver, and in follow-up exams, Ciara’s liver appeared softer and smaller. One week after Ciara underwent the Kasai procedure, Patras continued the kombucha regimen. Through the confusing whirlwind of doctor’s appointments leading up to Ciara’s diagnosis, Patras began bottle-feeding kombucha to her sick child. She ordered a kit to make the beverage, a fermented tea called kombucha.
Patras had already lost her mother, uncle, several aunts, and both grandmothers to cancer, so strengthening her immune system seemed appealing. While pregnant with Ciara, Patras had heard a guest on the daytime talk show Leeza discussing a drink that could boost the immune system. She told him that she was bringing the baby home that weekend, and that he needed to open a package that was waiting on the kitchen counter. She walked out of the room, away from other shell-shocked parents, to the pay phone at the end of the hall, where she called her husband. Hearing this, Patras felt the first spark of hope she’d had since the diagnosis. The Kasai procedure is hardly a cure, though: It’s only successful 30 to 50 percent of the time, and when it fails, patients need a liver transplant as early as age 1 or 2 even when it works, around three-quarters of patients still require a liver transplant by their 20th birthday.Īfter the procedure, doctors explained, the rest was up to Ciara’s immune system. When trapped, the excess bile damages liver cells, eventually leading to liver failure.ĭoctors told Patras that the only hope for Ciara was a complex surgery known as the Kasai procedure, in which the gallbladder and bile ducts are removed and the liver is connected directly to the small intestine.
Bile serves two functions in the body, helping to digest fat and carry waste out of the liver. Tests revealed that Ciara had biliary atresias, a rare liver disease in which the ducts that pass bile from the liver to the gallbladder and the first section of the small intestine become blocked. Patras took Ciara to her pediatrician, who sent the family to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Over the next few days, the color deepened, and her appetite diminished. Initially happy and healthy, about a month after Ciara was born, the whites of her eyes started to turn yellow.
In May of 1995, Ruth Patras realized that something was wrong with her 5-week-old daughter, Ciara.
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