Contrary to Gwyneth Paltrow's Resounding Endorsement, Covid-19 Cannot Be Treated With Kombucha

How lovely it must be to provide medical advice to Gwyneth Paltrow. All that is required, I’m assuming, is a white coat, minimalist, yet exorbitantly expensive office space with good lighting, and an active imagination. Any time Goop appears with a medical complaint, real or imagined, one need only hand her a jar of fermented cabbage or a rock to be used as a vaginal suppository, and voila one satisfied rich lady customer who will tell the entire world that whatever tea she was given worked every bit as good as medicine.

However, England’s National Health Service would like to clarify that—despite Gwyneth’s recent claims that she treated her lingering covid-19 symptoms with kombucha, kimchi, intuitive fasting, and visits to an infrared sauna—none of those things are proven to be effective at managing the debilitating long-term side effects of the horrible virus.

Though Gwyneth says she’s been “doing major research and finding some great stuff to support what I’m doing,” Stephen Powis, National Medical Director for NHS England does not seem to have seen the same evidence for the efficacy of “coconut aminos” in treating covid:

“In the last few days I see Gwyneth Paltrow is unfortunately suffering from the effects of Covid,” Powis said, according to the Guardian. “We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Goop has been on the wrong side of science, and as long as she keeps making a profit from assuring rich white ladies that buying expensive snake oil means they can never die, it is almost certainly not the last.