Is Coffee Good for You? The AI Monk & Gut–Brain Health

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1:02Welcome to The Wellness Scoop, your twice weekly dose of health and wellness inspiration. And as always, we are both here as your hosts. I'm Ella Mills. And I'm Rhiannon Lambert. And after a decade in the wellness industry, we know it's overwhelming and confusing. So that's why we're here to cut through the noise and make healthier living simple, fun and personal. As always, guys, thank you for being here. It is raining again. re it's rained every day officially in the uk of 2026 we're beating every record and i have to say i am fed up i'm over it yeah but you've got dogs and i feel like you have to go out in the rain whereas you know i just get lazy and unhealthy but i just like it's gotta stop anyways i imagine it's getting to you guys as well although we have had some funny emails from our listeners um in places like australia who were like oh interesting you're complaining about the cold It's been a heatwave here.

2:00It's so hot. I'm ready for cold. So it's a good reminder of the fact we too often want what we can't have. Well, also, that's why we're here. You can have a listen to us no matter the weather. I love it, Rhi. Okay, what have we got coming up for you guys on today's show? Okay, today we have, is coffee actually good for your brain? And how much is too much? what a major long-term study tells us about tea, coffee and dementia risk, why gut health is increasingly linked to brain health and cognitive decline, how inflammation connects the gut and the brain, and the viral AI monk that everyone's talking about and what it says about modern wellness.

2:42And finally, why older supplement data is resurfacing online and how to interpret it.

2:54so ella it has been an interesting week as we've said but i think you've had loads of nice fun things planned for half term yes i have although i have to say i'm now like we're recording this just before half term so we're recording a little bit earlier than normal and i am like texting my husband non-stop weather forecasts of other places like sunny spain so let's see i'm i'm really hoping for a last minute. Last minute deal. Get away. I really am. So let's see. I'll let you guys know if I persuade. Fingers crossed. I know that it's probably what you all need. I mean, I would much rather go to sunny Spain right now.

3:30Anyway, everyone listening. Ella's list here looks pretty epic if you don't go. Yes, I'm planning like pottery painting, going to see old friends. I've also decided, Rhi, I'm going on a fitness journey. Yeah, Ella. I know. I'm very inspired. Rhi is so consistent with her once a week to the gym. It's just once a week guys, nothing extra. I know, but you're so good with it. And we've also talked so much on the show over the last year about how a mix of exercise is so important for our health, our strength, our longevity. We know how important obviously exercise is for our mental health. And we know as well as women, particularly as we get older, that strength training is really, really important as a protective mechanism, particularly for our bones.

4:15And I'm quite lazy when it comes to exercise. I love moving my body. Like I love walking. I love yoga, really enjoy Pilates, but I've never really done anything strength related, weights, et cetera. And I'm just feeling inspired and ready. And I just want to feel really strong. So I'm very excited, but I'm going to commit. I'm going to really commit to it over the next few months and I'm going to feel strong. Yeah. Be sensible of how much you commit to. And then it's more achievable. Like I'd said before, If I said twice, I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. Whereas once for me, it was like, I've got no excuse.

4:46So I'll let you guys know, but I'm going to meet some weights. I'm very excited about it. And you, Rhi, you've got Fibre Festival going on. Yeah. You've got all sorts of things. I know. Fibre Festival tonight, I'll be talking out. So I'll give you all the debrief when I have it. I'm lecturing again at university. So I'm heading down to give a lecture for the students tomorrow at Roehampton University. What are you talking about? Take a guess. Fiver. Fiver, but also just general, let's keep up with the NNS, what Sacken's currently saying. And in our world, you know, there's a lot of data that comes out that to everybody else, you think, why are we discussing something that was launched like five years ago?

5:26But for us, that's the best we have. So in terms of nutritional science, you need a long time of proof before you can present anything. But I booked to see Matilda the Musical this half term. So that's, I'm very excited about that. I love that. And Rhi, I have got a recommendation from you. Fresh in as of like 10 seconds ago and I know I shoved my phone off so really sorry about that. My mum Camilla, we know she's our number one listener, has just said message for Rhiannon on her bird song because she knows how much you've been enjoying listening to it. So her dog's called Alfie, she said as I take Alfie out this morning there's a really great free app called Merlin ID which listens to bird songs and tells you what bird it is.

6:07I love that. Camilla if you're listening thank you and also well i know you are listening i saw an instagram reel this morning of parakeets that were eating the um cement mixture between this one particular house like hundreds of them that had flocked over and there's an interesting thing i'm going off about birds but they're not getting enough minerals from their diet at the moment so they're seeking it out like they would in a jungle from mud or soil from the cement between the walls i find birds fascinating so before i go off on that thank you camilla um that app sounds great merlin id that was i'm going to get it as well

6:46okay re what have we got in our headlines today we've got a quick pickup actually didn't we i promised you that i would bring some more information on that court case with tiktok and what it is is basically and there's going to be a preliminary ruling by the european commission on the basis that TikTok did not adequately assess how its features might harm users. And basically, the European Commission's indicated that the addictive design breaches rules protecting children and vulnerable adults, which obviously would put pressure on British regulators to act as well. So very, very interesting. But they're basically arguing that they've broken the EU's Digital Services Act by failing to protect users.

7:29They have failed to protect users. I saw another clip. This is just how crazy my algorithm is, from birds eating off the cement in the wall to a very sombering clip from somebody that was speaking about the fact children age 12 are being exposed and below to Botox online alongside not just pornography, but facial fillers and all sorts of things. So the regulation here is just not acceptable. Yeah, it's interesting. And they basically highlighted the features like the infinite stroll, autoplay, push notifications, highly personalised recommender system. These are the really addictive features that haven't been adequately assessed.

8:06And wait for it, this is crazy. They've got to defend themselves now to the commission, but they could face fines of up to 6 % of their global annual turnover, which is just shy of$40 billion. Oh, that's 6%. Yeah. But look, we're going to talk interestingly later about a new report that's just come out of Harvard and a few other places, basically looking at the mechanisms of the UPF industry and likening it to the tobacco industry and basically saying like there are deliberate mimics of the kind of trying to hit those dopamine receptors. that essentially it's trying to be harmful now of course that doesn't relate to all upfs but it is really interesting and i think that's exactly what we're seeing with this social media conversation of actually are we going to see and it's going to take a long time but are we going to start to see legislation about things like because you know when i read they didn't adequately assess them like no they did they did it really deliberately not to make it harmful but they made it really deliberately addictive yeah of course it triggers your brain yeah so it's going to be super interesting.

9:12Anyway, I promised you I'd bring you that pickup. So that's what it is. We'll keep you updated. Let's hope that with that pickup that actually follows through my biggest fear. I also think there should be age 16, just in my opinion, it should vary across what type of app it is and what it offers. But anyway, we can go into that another time. Our headline today, our first, Ella, is three cups of tea or coffee lowers risk of dementia by almost a fifth. And this was a large study from Harvard Uni. And it suggested that caffeine, which I think we have discussed before but it has a protective effect on the brain but it was suggested that it was about three cups being the optimum amount.

9:48I mean I'm a coffee drinker, Ree's not but I think us coffee drinkers always like you're able to see this. There's a bit of bias going on I think. It did say tea as well and I am but I don't think it's specified with green tea but I'm a green tea match. No they mean black tea. Black tea exactly caffeinated tea. caffeine so here they've got 131 000 adults in america so obviously huge sample size and they tracked their tea and coffee consumption alongside cognitive health outcomes over an average follow-up period of 43 years so huge huge period of time and these findings were published in jammer and essentially what they've shown is two to three cups of coffee a day were associated with an 18 lower risk of dementia which is obviously huge but one to two cups of tea per day were also linked to a 16 % lower risk.

10:37Good to know drinking more than this didn't offer an additional benefit. Yeah, just a big caveat there. Eight cups won't solve it. No, I see people overdoing it in the clinic over the nutrition clinic years. It's never that they're having the perfect amount. And interestingly, unfortunately for Sam, decaffeinated coffee showed no association. So I think the interesting thing here, so as we said on herbal teas, for example, what the benefit seems to be coming from is actually the caffeine in particular. Well, also, but then that's very interesting because you could also drink coffee according to new research for gut microbes, and that still counts if it's decaf or caffeinated.

11:17So if you're drinking coffee for brain benefits, it has to have the caffeine. But if you're drinking it for the gut health benefits, then don't worry if it's decaf or caffeinated. I think that's what we've gathered so far from speaking to different experts. That's right, exactly. And then basically in the follow-up period, what they saw was that people who, as we said, regularly consumed caffeinated coffee and tea, also as well as had a reduced risk of dementia, performed slightly better on memory and thinking tests than those who drank little or no caffeine. Those differences were more modest, but it's still interesting to see.

11:50Rhi, will you talk us through kind of how caffeine works here? Like what are those neuroprotective effects that scientists think might be at play. A hundred percent. And I think sometimes as well, we have to remember that the caffeine itself may be helping with other areas of your life and that aspect of your brain too. So there's lots of things we could pull from this data. The first one is reducing inflammation in the brain. And I think that's really interesting. And we have to remember that coffee and black tea or caffeinated tea contains polyphenols, you know, those amazing antioxidant components.

12:24so that might of course slow the degeneration of the brain and when we talk about neurodegeneration it's just over time as we age we become less efficient how we use it but also you can get neurodegenerative diseases which is what we're discussing here with the links to the umbrella of dementia you know you can get lots of different types of conditions under that as well but it prevents the build-up of toxic proteins in the brain apparently and they're the components that are linked to dementia. We often talk about amyloid plaques and things when we're discussing things that go on in the brain.

13:00And what's really interesting is that the reduction of inflammation essentially is also good for heart health because, you know, we're increasing blood flow to the brain and that's really, really important. I do wonder as well with this, that coffee just relaxes people and maybe it's part of a habitual thing that's just really lovely when you take it and the context and limitations you have to remember that when data is observational so this is observational and really just to pause on there what just to clarify what that means is basically these people have been kept up with over the 40 years or so of this study and they will be consistently filling out forms saying what are you eating what are you drinking and they'll be writing it down and sharing it which isn't accurate all the time because as we know i mean memory recall what did I eat yesterday?

13:46I actually do genuinely have to take a step back, Ella, and think, what did I eat yesterday? Exactly. So it's imperfect, but it's still, particularly with this number of people over this period of time, really interesting. Yeah, really interesting because it's a large data pool, but it's hard to prove the cause and the effect. And that is like the chicken and the egg, what came first type of thing when we're discussing these types of research studies. But what I do like to think of is that, you know, the people who drink tea or coffee, you know, they differ in their lifestyle factors. We have to remember that they're overall diets, of course, potentially, I'd say are more impactful than those three cups of coffee when it comes to supporting your brain health.

14:22Yeah, exactly. So I guess a final note on this topic, and we have actually covered this before, because again, this dementia is such a prevalent challenge in our society. And therefore, it's something that's being studied in huge detail, of course, at the moment. But what we do know is that, of course, you can't guarantee to prevent dementia but actually lots of cases could be prevented and where the evidence sits on that is all your classics guys regular physical exercise a healthy balanced diet maintaining healthy weight not smoking limiting alcohol getting adequate sleep and obviously managing kind of blood pressure and those sorts of things so it kind of comes back to the same pillars of health and then your three cups of coffee on top of that well nutritionist hat on now I'm thinking you know sleep quality is one of the largest indicators of good health long term.

15:12And when you can't get it, as Ella and I know, it's very frustrating. But if you have the opportunity and you're finding you're not getting good quality sleep, that could be because the timing of your coffee too. It has a very long shelf life. And most experts say stop drinking coffee before one, two o 'clock. I actually go for midday in the nutrition clinic. But then three cups before midday, I think that is quite a lot. So you've really got to gauge it on what fits with your lifestyle and just know that having a cup of coffee can have really nice benefits for you but try and have it in the first half of your day and really one uh on the spot question for you this comes up i think all the time is people get nervous about coffee on an empty stomach should you wait until you're having breakfast or after breakfast for your coffee so we've got individual variations on the impact now studies do suggest that for most people it's better to there's that phrase hydrate before you caffeinate.

16:05But actually, coffee does technically offer hydration. But most people use it as kind of a tool to go to the toilet. You know, it helps kickstart bowel movements. I don't think there's any harm in it if it works for you. But for lots of people, it induces anxiety. It kind of acts as an appetite suppressant, which isn't always healthy either. And it means you might not consume the adequate breakfast that you probably might need to do for that day. But there's individual variations. I mean, you go to some parts of the world, that is their culture. They will wake up, have their shot of coffee and then proceed with their day.

16:38So do what works for you, really monitor yourself. There's no right or wrong. Love that. Fantastic. Right. Headline number two, totally different topic. And this was just an interesting angle on an ongoing debate, which is a new study said ultra processed foods should be treated more like cigarettes than food. upfs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco so the research is a new paper published in addiction um very um apt name of the feature there argues that ultra processed foods share key engineering strategies that were originally originally developed by the tobacco industry and that we should really fundamentally see how the upfs are classified and regulated and how we actually look at what we're doing here the similarities between the two.

17:26And the paper was authored by researchers from Harvard, Ella and Michigan, Duke University, but it reframes these types of foods as not being ordinary foods, but as industrial products. And that is because they are designed for us to eat loads of them. That's why on repetition, we just want more and more. And there's a quote, do you want to read that out? The authors wrote this. Yeah, definitely. I just, I read the paper earlier this week and I I found it really interesting because obviously we've heard this before, you know, should the food industry be regulated in this way? You know, should we be treating it exactly like smoking?

18:04And is there a good example to follow? Then other people say that's way too extreme. But I think the really interesting thing here that we'll get into, and I promise I'll come to the quo, is basically this argument that actually, if you start looking at the pattern and this argument that they've deliberately made it addictive, which I think is a great thing. It shifts the responsibility from the individual fundamentally to the corporations and to the industry. And it creates a kind of easier foundation for legal accountability, essentially, because it's a little bit like that TikTok case that we were just talking about.

18:36It's the argument that you've actually deliberately engineered this to be harmful. Now, of course, just to be super clear before we get any further into this, UPFs exist on a continuum. A tin of tomatoes that has citric acid and is officially a UPF because it has that preservative it is not bad for you just to be so so so clear we're talking about Pringles here no one wants to be binge eating or feels an addiction to baked beans or I doubt it yeah we're talking about like once you pop you can't stop kind of thing with Pringles so just to be super super super clear on that because I think that's incredibly important it's more confectionery and fast ready meals and items and I think that But this is what makes it so hard, Ella, is that because no one is universally agreeing on categorizing these foods, it makes passing any judgment on it or scientific consensus on it really difficult.

19:29A hundred percent, because no one's arguing that we're trying to get, you know, people addicted to a different type. Like, you know, we talked about jarred tomato sauce the other day and some have a slightly kind of. The pasta sauces. More natural ingredient deck than others. Like, you know, no one's arguing exactly we're trying to create addiction to tomato sauce. But what the researchers said is based on this analysis, we argue that many UPFs share more characteristics with cigarettes than with minimally processed fruits or vegetables and therefore warrant regulation in line with significant public health risks that they pose.

20:00as I said I know we've talked about UPFs a lot but I just think when you've got people at Harvard MIT at Duke University is saying wait a second when we get into this we get into the kind of structural composition and the deliberate engineering of these foods we think that this is much more in line with an industry like the tobacco industry that I think we can draw a broad consensus on is a pretty toxic industry than they do with actual food it's pretty it's pretty interesting. We call it hedonic hunger at university and we call it foods that are engineered with a head response rather than a stomach response.

20:34And by that, in really basic terms, I mean, you're not eating it because you're full or you want that satisfied feeling or you're hungry. You're eating it because you're craving it because of that reward center in your brain, the dopamine center that's triggered when you have loads of refined... I always use the cake as the example when we're talking about UPFs. What a perfect combination of ice cream of fats and sugar combined together with carbohydrate it's just so moorish but i would say this though as well this is what makes it so hard is that upfs are such broad categories and category four so as we talk about this think about as i said things like pringles in your mind but interestingly what the authors are writing is that you know some of the kind of simple carbohydrates like sucrose that are used in these very deliberately is their argument triggers dopamine responses comparable to those produced by nicotine particularly when delivered quickly and repeatedly fast food it's like your favorite um mackie you know watsits and um the the king of the burgers exactly and basically when they so they talk a lot about exactly dose optimization and hedonic manipulation and essentially that they these are the tools used in this engineering which is so mimicking the tobacco industry and hedonic manipulation describes this deliberate engineering of taste smell texture mouthfeel to maximize pleasure while overriding natural satiety signals and i think it's so important to highlight that like it is deliberately designed to this whole like once you pop you can't stop but it's called food science and i think what's really interesting here is science is an amazing thing but it's an amazing thing for things like wow that ice cream tastes amazing it's totally fine you shouldn't feel any guilt or shame in wanting to consume a epf item like like ice cream but the issue is when you've got on-the-go sandwiches for lunch that are pumped full of these extra chemicals because they want you to just consume more and more of them and they're not benefiting you they're giving you no fiber no nutrition like ellis said it's probably pumped with extra sucrose and that the ingredient deck is really long and i think that's where the issue is is that the confectionery items are one thing but it's also those in disguise as being healthy meals.

22:45And I think that's where it's really deceptive for the public. There's so much nuance, isn't there? Exactly. And then the paper, it's very, very long, but it then went on to highlight how both, again, the UPF food industry and the tobacco industry relied on very similar commercial strategies to increase consumption and protect profits. And in this case, it's adding sensory additives, accelerating reward delivery, expanding access across everyday environments, targeting children, adolescents, and deploying health washing claims, like when Coco Pop says supporting your family's health, that minimise the perceived risk.

23:20And they basically argue that when you put this all together, the practices hijack human biology, undermine individual agency, and contribute substantially to chronic disease and rising healthcare costs. And basically what they're saying is when you actually look at it, and as you said, Reet, which is so important, of course, we're not talking about everything that contains single additive like our tinned tomatoes with citric acid in but when you're looking at the kind of the confectionary-ish end of the spectrum basically their argument is that actually UPFs are addictive they should be considered addictive when you really look at the science behind it that is what's going on people deserve better Ella I think the ultimate thing is that if you are first of all with the word addictive there's also a difference between I mean food addiction is also debated because it's not the same as having an alcohol addiction for some people or one to smoking so that the pathways in the brain are slightly different but that's also heavily debated in the world of research the the word and the use of the word addictive that was one thing what i was going to actually say is that the people that really need this information more than anyone else those living on the breadline that are consuming probably the like the whole of their diets on upf the last thing they're able to think about is changing the food because they're so worried about childcare or they're worried about everything else in life and what I hate is that this food industry isn't helping those people like you've just said if this comes through they have a responsibility I can't bear it because it just upsets me that it's um but I just think it's a really helpful argument from a kind of governmental level actually which is basically like again if If you can recognize this as a framework designed to create compulsive consumption and you look at it within a framework of addiction, it shifts the focus from individual blame towards corporate accountability.

25:07And, you know, they're very clear to stress that, you know, the public health harms associated with UPFs are clear, whether we're talking about addictive or not addictive. But the addictive element makes it slightly easier essentially to kind of regulate and go after these corporations and these companies and these products. and essentially by placing upfs within this historical context of the tobacco industry and the control that came to it you know they're very clear again like reducing cigarette use still is recognized globally as one of the most significant public health achievements of the 20th century but it required decades of scientific evidence advocacy policy reform litigation against an incredibly powerful industry that fought back all the way and they're saying basically it's similar patterns unfolding now with the UPFs and the food industry.

25:56The evidence of harm is accumulating. The exposure is widespread, but the regulation is just, it hasn't caught up in any shape or form. So if we can draw on what worked for tobacco, they're suggesting essentially like tools around restriction on child targeted marketing, clearer labeling, taxation, limits on availability in schools, hospitals, those sorts of settings, and legal accountability. Essentially, we should look at the same framework, which is so interesting. Anyway, it's well worth a read. I think it's definitely worth a read, everyone. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because, like I said, I think everybody deserves access to better nutrition.

26:31So let's hope that we can try and push it. Yeah. And when people are like, oh, but you know, we shouldn't tell people what to do. We shouldn't have a nanny state. It's like, yeah, but we shouldn't have large corporations that are deliberately hijacking our brains, our body, our biology in order to make us eat more of things that are fundamentally in excess. And I really am trying to highlight in excess and in place of proper food, fundamentally very bad for our health. And it's not a choice for so many people because what I would classify as industrialised food is the only option they have. And that is the reality.

27:05So it does have to be regulated. And I just think, yeah, it's not OK. But also I hadn't seen this argument in such a way before where essentially looking at actually if you rephrase it to go away from they're not very good for you to actually they're scientifically designed to be addictive and that that's a breach of rules essentially in the exact same argument to some extent we've just seen with tiktok which is why it's such an interesting parallel that actually becomes easier to legislate and also to this point of this kind of huge uh like continuum that exists of upfs it also i would see it making it easier to legislate in terms of like titric acid and tin tomatoes and baby formula on one end to I keep saying Pringles they're not the only offender it's just that they have the slogan once you pop you can't stop which I think is really indicative of this whole conundrum 100 % if we just summarize the last two features the same with TikTok once you pop you can't stop they're all very much aligned I'll tell you something where you know how I've been bricking my phone and I'm like it's amazing I'm not going on social media I forgot to do it the other night had my phone upstairs what did I do scrolled for an hour your favorite hobby it was such the UK's favorite hobby we love her um except we hate it anyway it was just really interesting because it just shows it's like I've been on such a roll I know how much better I feel but it's just there in front of you and it's just too easy to do I know do you know it's very interesting I'm on back on the food subject my friends are food lawyer and we always talk about how difficult things are to pass through and all the loopholes.

28:38There's just so many loopholes that companies jump through and you can. And it's really interesting watching the space change.

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