Happiness really does start in the gut | MOMO Kombucha

May 2026

Happiness really does start in the gut

Our customers often tell us that drinking our kombucha makes them feel great.

Well, there's actually a well-established relationship between your gut and your mood.

MOMO is full to the brim with the same kind of active, live cultures that thrive in the gut. So can a bottle light you up inside?

★★★★★

"MOMO is just what I needed. I take it in the afternoon instead of a cup of tea and feel so much better. Brilliant."

Christine D. · Mixed Case

★★★★★

"Delicious, refreshing, healthy. I generally feel healthier and more energetic on the days I have a bottle of MOMO with breakfast."

Melvin B. · Mixed Case

★★★★★

"The first kombucha I've found that genuinely feels good for your gut. I've worked it into my daily routine. Can't go wrong with the lemon and ginger."

Bec G. · Subscriber

Your brain isn't the boss of how you feel

Our guts are a kind of factory. They convert the food we eat into the things our bodies need to run, and that includes the chemicals that govern our mood.

Serotonin, dopamine and GABA are three of the most important mood-altering chemicals our bodies produce. Much of their production, and a lot of their use, happens down in the gut.

The gut is an emotion center

These happiness and anti-anxiety chemicals aren't made in the gut and then transported upstairs to the brain. The gut is where they're deployed.

Your gut will genuinely feel "happy" or "sad" depending on its condition. And it's that feeling that gets sent up to your brain.

90%

Serotonin

The body's main mood-stabiliser. Most of it is made in the gut.

50%

Dopamine

The chemical of motivation and reward. Half of it is produced in the gut.

30%

GABA

The body's calming signal. Up to a third comes from gut bacteria.

There's a direct line between gut and brain

It's called the vagus nerve, and it's the longest single nerve in the body. It runs from the base of your brain down to the depths of your gut, carrying signals in both directions.

But the traffic isn't even. About eighty per cent of the fibres in the vagus nerve carry information upward: from gut to brain. Only twenty per cent run the other way. The brain does far more listening than talking.

The conversation goes both ways

For most of the twentieth century, the assumption ran one way: stress and anxiety caused stomach problems. Nervous people got ulcers, worry upset your gut. The brain caused; the gut suffered.

Then researchers began watching the wire more carefully, and noticed that signals were moving the other way too. People with chronic gut issues were developing anxiety and depression at far higher rates than the general population, and the gut problems were starting first.

Your head can make your stomach unhappy... and your stomach can do the same back.

80%

of nerve signals travel from gut to brain - not the other way around.

Agostoni et al., 1957

What you eat is doing more than you think

When gut health is this important for mood, what you put in starts to matter quite a lot.

In a 2023 study at Emory University, researchers measured what a group of people ate, what their gut bacteria looked like before and after a change in their diet, and how they felt at each stage.

They confirmed something that probably feels intuitive. Variety is vital. The more diverse a person's gut microbiome became, the less anxiety and depression they reported. As variety went up, low mood went down.

Feed the trillions

There are trillions of microbes living in your gut. They aren't passengers - they produce the chemicals that travel up your vagus nerve. They regulate inflammation and influence the stress response. A diverse, well-fed microbiome is a different organ to a depleted one.

In 2021, researchers at Stanford put healthy adults on a ten-week diet rich in fermented foods, kombucha included. By the end, the group had measurably more diverse gut microbiomes and significantly lower levels of nineteen different inflammatory proteins in their blood. The lead researcher called the result "stunning".

The short version is that diversity matters. What lives in your gut shapes how you feel.

"The wider diversity of fibre-packed plants you eat, the happier and more diverse your gut microbiome will be."

Professor Tim Spector, Gut Health Specialist

It's why we brew.

We love that MOMO makes people smile. Your wellbeing depends on everything you eat and drink - but drinking MOMO is likely to improve the diversity of your gut microbiome.

We started MOMO because kombucha made us feel great, and we wanted to share that feeling with the world. It's one good, easy place to start. After that, fill your plate up.

Does MOMO make you feel great? Let us know.

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Lisa & Josh