Newsletter #186 - Coffee, Chocolate, & Peanuts 🍫
Good morning humanOS friends, hope everyone is enjoying the holiday weekend!
This week, perhaps more than any other, food is very much on the mind 👀 so we took a look at some of the latest epidemiological research exploring the benefits of specific foods on long-term health outcomes, including a couple of old favorites (if I have learned anything at all, my years of running the twitter account have taught me that people love hearing good things about coffee and chocolate).
Importantly, we are not talking about pharmaceutical doses here. These benefits were generally associated with very modest amounts of these foods, so this is realistically achievable in a normal diet.
Key takeaways:
🔹 Chocolate is associated with lower risk of death from all causes
🔹 Coffee is linked to reduced risk of liver disease.
🔹 Peanuts are linked to reduced risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease
To get the details, scroll on down 👇
This Week's Research Highlights
🥜 Eating peanuts is associated with reduced risk of stroke.
Researchers in Japan analyzed data from a total of 74793 participants who completed a lifestyle questionnaire including a validated food frequency questionnaire. They were followed for approximately 15 years, and incidence of stroke and heart disease was determined through linked hospital data. After adjusting for other health conditions, smoking, diet, alcohol consumption and physical activity, they found that subjects who ate just 4-5 peanuts per day had a 20% lower risk of ischemic stroke, 16% lower risk of total stroke, and 13% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, compared to those who did not consume peanuts at all.
🍫 Regular consumption of small amounts of chocolate is linked to lower all-cause mortality.
Researchers examined data from a cohort of 91891 American participants aged 55-74 years. Chocolate consumption was assessed via a food frequency questionnaire, and subjects were followed for an average of 13.5 years. They found that regular chocolate consumption was associated with lower all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in a nonlinear dose–response manner, with the lowest risk observed at chocolate consumption of 0.7 servings/week and 0.6 servings/week, respectively. Worth noting here that one serving, in this study, was defined as 28.35 grams of chocolate, so the maximum benefit is achieved with around 17-19 grams of chocolate, which isn’t a whole lot.
☕ Drinking coffee (either caffeinated or decaffeinated) is associated with reduced risk of developing chronic liver disease and related liver conditions.
Researchers at the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh analyzed data from the UK Biobank on 495,585 participants who reported on their coffee drinking habits. Subjects were followed for a median of 10.7 years, during which time their health was monitored. Compared to non-coffee drinkers, coffee-drinkers were shown to have a 21% reduced risk of chronic liver disease, a 20% reduced risk of chronic or fatty liver disease, and a 49% reduced risk of death from chronic liver disease. While all types of coffee appeared to be helpful, the maximum benefit was found in individuals who drank ground coffee. This may be because ground coffee (as opposed to instant coffee) is rich in the diterpenoids kahweol and cafestol, compounds which have been shown to be protective against liver fibrosis in animal models.
Random Trivia & Weird News
🤠 In 1942, the BBC banned Bing Crosby’s “Deep in the Heart of Texas” for being too “jaunty.”
When the BBC broadcast the song during working hours, the infectious melody apparently enticed factory workers to clap in time with the music.
"Some hammered enthusiastically with their tools on anything handy—generally expensive machinery. Others were so busy clapping they forgot to perform some essential operation as the assembly belt went by.”
To safeguard critical wartime production, the BBC banned the tune from the program.
Podcasts We Loved This Week
- Noah Baker & Richard Van Noorden: Coronapod - Everything we know about the new COVID variant. Via Nature Podcast.
- Lucia Jacobs: Squirrel-nut economics and other agility tricks. Via Science Friday.
Products We Are Enjoying
Brazil nuts
Brazil nuts are kind of expensive, but a little bit goes a long way. For instance, eating just one Brazil nut per day is probably the most efficient way to meet your selenium requirements. And they may have other benefits as well. This study, for instance, found that consuming just a single dose of 20 or 50 grams of Brazil nuts substantially improved the lipid profile (LDL-C dropped by around 20 mg/dL, which is insane for such a miniscule dietary intervention).
humanOS Catalog Feature of the Week
Thanks for reading and we will see y'all next week! 🍁