A natural medicine first used by the Chinese thousands of years ago will be produced in Haworth by the autumn.

Stanbury woman Gill Penny, who has been brewing kombucha tea at her home for the last three years, is taking over the former Bridgehouse Garage premises in Station Road.

Planning permission has been granted and over the next few months a lean-to section will be demolished and a new two-storey extension built. The Kombucha Natural Health Service will have a shop, offices and brewing area along with consulting room.

Gill, who has worked as a herbalist for 20 years and was registered in Spain, became in-terested in kombucha four years ago through a friend with AIDS. The tea, a fermented symbiosis of yeast and bacteria, is said to boost the immune system and to be beneficial to people with health problems ranging from diabetes to cancer, multiple sclerosis to arthritis, and drug addiction to heart disease.

Widely used in Russia and Eastern Europe before the 1939-45 war its popularity declined until then-US president Ronald Reagan took it across the Atlantic in the 1980s. Gill says it has extraordinary detoxifying and metabolic-balancing qualities, and is as wholesome as yoghurt.

Because of limitations on space she can currently cope with only 500 human and animal clients but aims to expand the business dramatically once the new premises are up and running. Customer services manager Linda Gray will be contacting hospitals, health centres and GPs across Britain inviting them to try the natural product on their patients.

Gill says the government is discouraging the use of anti-biotics but has failed to explain that they prevent the human system producing natural anti-bodies to disease.

She believes kombucha is an excellent alternative. She says it is natural pro-biotic which builds up the immune system and helps people fight off infection. "One diabetic client's blood sugar level dropped from a figure of 20 to a normal 5.7 within seven days of using the tea," she says. "It helps the body produce its own insulin."

Gill, a member of the Parl-iamentary Group for Alter-native and Complementary Medicine and the Food Label-ling Agenda Group, believes chemical additives in foods are to blame for the growing number of children suffering from asthma. She is willing to give talks and take samples of kombucha to local groups to raise awareness of the problems caused by additives and chemicals in the diet and in medicines.

She is being joined in the business by natural health care worker Rhona Smith and Stanbury scientist Professor Robert Stanton. "If this stops people having to have operations it will save the NHS a lot of money," she says.

Gill says German important at prohibitive prices are available at health food shops but locally produced kombucha will sell at no more than $3.60 per bottle.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.