
Mushrooms may 'reduce the risk of mild brain decline' - tartoran
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-47554966
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sametmax
The correlation seems a bit broad. If you eat a lot of mushrooms, it increases
the probability you cook and eat fresh vegetables. That itself is a big factor
in health.

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chabes
I agree, though I think studies like these encourage further studies.
Researchers are basically saying that there is evidence that points in a
certain direction, so let’s follow it and see what it reveals.

I’m personally extremely excited about the suggestions of this research, and
am looking forward to future studies that are more in-depth.

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sametmax
You're right, I should not be so quickly dismissive. More knowledge is always
good either way.

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firethief
"People who remember eating mushrooms more often have dramatically better
memory"?

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ekovarski
Could be true as I don't remember the last time I ate mushrooms. :)

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mabbo
> The National University of Singapore study's findings were based on 663
> Chinese adults, aged over 60, whose diet and lifestyle were tracked from
> 2011 to 2017.

What concerns me is how many variables were tracked.

Every year, come Superbowl Sunday, we hear about all the patterns: no team
that had an under-32 coach from West of the Mississippi has ever won (I've no
idea if that's true, but that's an example). The problem is that there's so
many variables compared to data points that it's easy to find a pattern.

663 adults sounds like a lot of data, but this wasn't a study about mushrooms,
it was tracking many different variables in diet and lifestyle. Maybe the
mushroom pattern is random chance.

There's also correlation vs causation. Perhaps mushrooms are eaten more in a
region where mild brain decline is less common. Maybe mushrooms taste better
to people with genes that also make brains not decline.

All that said, as a guy who loves eating mushrooms I fully support further
studies.

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bencollier49
Chinese mushroom eaters. Goodness only knows what the cultural connotations
and confounding variables must be.

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blauditore
I wonder if the study was actually focusing on Mushrooms and brain decline, or
on a broader set of topics (other foods, lifestyle etc.). If it's the latter,
that might just be a small part of a large dataset, thus the result of
p-fishing.

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C14L
> "may"

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DougN7
Yeah, I hate weasel words like that too. Eating sand “may” make me a genius.
For that matter it “may” allow me to fly!

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chabes
At this point, it’s not actually been tested.

“May” is an appropriate word here, because there is a suggestion (based on the
study) that something may (or may not) be correlated.

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yeahdontask
Sigh. I read the article thinking it was going to be about psilocybin. Those
kinds of mushrooms seem to help me ward off brain decline. :-p

