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Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

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Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#31

Post by tlb »

nologic01 wrote: post #21

I would like to see alongside the results of all corresponding "Higher X Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer" metastudies, where X is every other healthy food infatuation over the ages (Vitamic C, Mediterranean diet, Spinach, Broccoli etc). For sure there might be some benefit for some types of cancer or other diseases, but the constant barrage of marginal results about different food categories does not help cr…

It's self-reinforcing. Because there is a subset of the population that reads health news and acts on it, they both:

A: exercise, sleep 8 hours, avoid ultra-processed foods

B: take whatever the latest anti-cancer fad supplement is

Behavior A actually helps, while B is probably neutral. But studies will show that all the B behaviors will be associated with lower cancer risk, because they're also associated with A behaviors.

So this entire class of studies (looking for associations between foods and health) is complete crap.

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#32

Post by b800h »

Oh god, this is terribly difficult to rid of hidden variables.

Mushroom consumption is probably also correlated in Western countries with higher social class, for example, but not in Eastern Europe. Or maybe it used to be but isn't anymore, the whole thing is ghastly to unpick.

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#33

Post by magicalhippo »

nologic01 wrote: post #21

I would like to see alongside the results of all corresponding "Higher X Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer" metastudies, where X is every other healthy food infatuation over the ages (Vitamic C, Mediterranean diet, Spinach, Broccoli etc). For sure there might be some benefit for some types of cancer or other diseases, but the constant barrage of marginal results about different food categories does not help cr…

There's also the look-elsewhere effect[1][2] to contend with.

[1]: https://xkcd.com/882/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look-elsewhere_effect

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#34

Post by magicalhippo »

chongli wrote: post #13
irrational wrote: post #11

Well, hopefully my not smoking will help cancel out my refusing to ever eat a mushroom.

That’s too bad. Is it the texture you don’t like? I know a lot of people don’t like mushrooms. I love them! A good cream of wild mushroom soup with some crusty bread is one of the best meals on a damp, chilly autumn day! Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil over the soup! That is just heaven in a bowl!

Me and my SO love a creamy chanterelle sauce to chicken breasts and roasted potatoes. We often add pan fried cremini mushrooms alongside, so darn good!

And in "wild" stews, ie with elk, deer or similar meat, forest mushrooms is a must.

We use mushrooms in other dishes too, but the above are our favorites.

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#35

Post by giantg2 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #16
giantg2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, the rule of thumb is to never eat any mushrooms raw. But there are a few exceptions, including button mushrooms. I won't eat raw mushrooms, except maybe truffles (if you really cook truffles then what's the point?).

I think you mean button mushrooms are no exception.

They are a common exception. I wouldn't eat them raw though.

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#37

Post by CiteXieAlAlyEtc »

OJFord wrote: post #30
atourgates wrote: post #19

Could someone help me understand how to interpret this line: > Higher mushroom consumption was associated with lower risk of total cancer (pooled RR for the highest compared with the lowest consumption groups: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17) Specifically the “0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17” line? ChatGPT told me: > The “pooled RR” of 0.66 indicates that the risk of cancer was 34% lower in the group with the highe…

IANA statistician, but yes I believe that's correct. The confidence interval means that it might not actually be 0.66, sample size n = only 17 after all, but (with 95% certainty) the true value for the population sampled lies within 0.55-0.78.

(threading along for a minor nitpick on above post)

Ya, correct enough.

> > Higher mushroom consumption was associated with lower risk of total cancer (pooled RR for the highest compared with the lowest consumption groups: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17)

> Specifically the “0.66; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.78; n = 17” line?

For a given study with a cohort of A entities, and a count of events A_event, and a cohort of B entities, with count of events B_event; the A_risk will be A_event/A, B_risk will be B_event/B; and the risk ratio (RR) between the cohorts will be RR = A_risk/B_risk. [wiki gives a cursory math explainer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_risk#Numerical_exampl...] If the RR here is lower than 1, whatever distinguishes cohort A from B is interpreted as reducing the risk.

The linked study does a systematic review of the literature. From that review, they ultimately find 17 studies which are suitably comparable under their criteria. Each of these 17 studies are observational studies over different sizes of cohorts (table 1 in linked paper characterizes the n for each study) that report their own risk ratios (figure 3 in the paper plots each of those RR), then they pooled those risk ratios with a random effects model to synthesize each of the different risk ratios between those studies into the single pooled RR within some confidence interval quoted above. ("pooled" because it's pooling the results from multiple studies.)

>sample size n = only 17 after all

The nitpick is that n=17 is referring to the number of papers pooled, not the population sampled in the underlying observational studies. (that number is higher than 17; lee et al in table 1/ fig 3 is n=112,991).

This chapter in "Doing Meta-analysis in R" gives a rundown on the mechanics of pooling effect sizes with random-effects models (as done in this paper): https://bookdown.org/MathiasHarrer/Doing_Meta_Analysis_in_R/...

Odds Ratios and Risk Ratios pop up in a lot of medical studies, there's a number of papers that can help clarify their differences and pitfalls (Viera here is a reasonable entry point: https://sma.org/southern-medical-journal/article/odds-ratios...)

Hope that helps ^_^

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#38

Post by inferiorhuman »

giantg2 wrote: post #35
s1artibartfast wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you mean button mushrooms are no exception.

They are a common exception. I wouldn't eat them raw though.

Portabellos and button mushrooms are the same damn thing.

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#39

Post by hgomersall »

herbst wrote: post #28
atourgates wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the headline and immediately thought of ways I’d could sneak mushrooms past my mushroom-disliking child. For him it’s the texture, so we might be looking at some cream of mushroom soup.

I learned to love them. I always liked the taste so I either mashed them or didn't eat the mushrooms itself in a sauce. With time I learned to like the texture as well. Except Champignons which I still dislike. They have the worst texture of nearly all food I ever tried. So maybe also try avoiding Champignons

Isn't "champignon" just French for "mushroom"?

Re: Higher Mushroom Consumption Associated with Lower Cancer Risk

#40

Post by rsynnott »

anjel wrote: post #6
pliesfan97 wrote: post #2

I still wonder what Paul Stamets was alluding to about crimini mushrooms and cancer risk on his episode of the Joe Rogan podcast where he seemed unable to talk freely

As per reddit, so take it with a grain of redd salt: "What he doesn't want to say out loud in plain English is that agaratine containing mushrooms LIKE PORTABELLOS when consumed RAW are highly CARCINOGENIC while some compounds in white button mushrooms can help prevent and treat breast cancers agaratines can cause cancer, they are heat unstable so if cooked it's not a big risk but raw like they are served often in sa…

> "... If someone like Stamets came out and said that point blank he could be sued for making radical claims..."

By... who? The mushrooms, for libel?

(Also, what on earth is going on with r/mycology? Impressive amount of conspiracy theory nonsense voted up there.)

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