Newsletter #159: Mushrooms, Coffee, & Green Tea 🍄
Welcome to this week's humanOS newsletter! This week, we looked at some new epidemiological research examining the long-term health effects of mushrooms, as well as our two favorite beverages: coffee and tea.
We learned that coffee is linked to lower risk of dying from any cause, and mushrooms and coffee are associated with significantly reduced risk of developing and dying from cancer respectively. Finally, drinking green tea appears to reduce likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes, or suffering from complications related to the disease.
To find out more, scroll down 👇🏼
Question of the week
🤔 Does drinking caffeinated beverages like coffee or tea lead to dehydration?
💡 Answer
This Week’s Research Highlights
☕ Coffee consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality and cancer mortality.
Researchers in Spain followed 1567 adult participants over an 18-year period, assessing aspects of their diet and health-related outcomes. Compared with no consumption, consumption of more than one cup of coffee per day was associated with a 44% lower risk of all-cause mortality, and a 59% lower risk of cancer mortality. Notably, the protective effect was only found for caffeinated coffee specifically after 12-18 years of follow-up, though this may be partly due to less available data (fewer people drink decaf). Coffee contains an array of polyphenols and nutrients, which have been linked to reduced oxidative stress improved insulin sensitivity, and anti-cancer effects.
🍄 Eating mushrooms is linked to reduced risk of cancer.
Researchers combed the literature systematically and identified 17 studies, published between 1966-2020, which assessed the relationship between mushroom intake and cancer. After analyzing the data from these studies, they determined that higher mushroom consumption was associated with a 34% lower risk of cancer, with the strongest association observed for breast cancer (though this may have been due to more studies conducted on this specific cancer site). Mushrooms are rich in bioactive compounds, particularly in the amino acid ergothioneine, a powerful antioxidant of which mushrooms are the best dietary source.
🍵 Drinking tea daily is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes and diabetic complications.
Researchers in China analyzed data on tea consumption and health outcomes in a sample of patients with diabetes (n=30300) and an age-matched group of participants who were free of diabetes at baseline (n=482425). Compared to those who never drank tea, subjects in the latter group who drank tea daily were 8% less likely to develop diabetes over the course of the follow-up period. Among the patients with type 2 diabetes, those who drank tea daily had 10% lower risk of all-cause mortality and 12% lower risk of microvascular complications. Only green tea was linked to lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes and lower risk of all-cause mortality - evidence for other types of tea was ambiguous.
Podcasts We Loved This Week
- Alan Flanagan: Shift work and health. Via Sigma Nutrition Radio.
- Michael Lewis: Why did America’s pandemic response fail so miserably? Via the Ezra Klein Show.
- Parmesh Gajjar: Ever wonder why big cereal chunks are on top? Researchers reveal the cause of the “Brazil nut effect.” Via Science Friday.
Products We Are Enjoying
MRM Superfoods Matcha.
Matcha is a powder made from finely grinding green tea leaves. Because you are consuming the whole plant, as opposed to an infusion like when you use tea bags, you wind up getting more of the bioactive catechins, like EGCG. I like this brand in particular because it is third-party lab-tested for quality, and the friendly folks at Consumer Lab (a service that I highly recommend) identified this one specifically as a green tea product that was rich in the beneficial compounds that we are looking for.
