Risks and Downsides of Mushroom Coffee

The main downside of most mushroom coffee products is that they don’t disclose the amount gbmushrooms.net of mushroom extracts or ground mushrooms used in their product. While some companies list the total weight of proprietary mushroom blends, it’s still unclear how much of each mushroom you’re consuming. Though ingesting medicinal mushrooms in specific amounts may offer health benefits, most studies have used higher doses of either ground mushrooms or mushroom extracts in supplement form. Unless a product lists the amount of each mushroom in a mushroom coffee product, it’s impossible to know how much you’re consuming.3

Just because a product contains an ingredient, whether it be medicinal mushrooms or vitamins and minerals, it doesn’t necessarily mean it provides enough of the ingredient to have any meaningful effect on health.

Also, most human studies investigating medicinal mushrooms have studied the effects of supplements containing a single mushroom type, not multiple types. This makes it difficult to assess how a product containing more than one medicinal mushroom in undisclosed ratios will impact health.

Additionally, there’s no human evidence suggesting that drinking mushroom coffee benefits health more than drinking regular coffee. People who are interested in using medicinal mushrooms for a specific purpose, such as stress reduction, are much better off using a single-ingredient supplement that contains a high enough dose to influence health.

What’s more, though most medicinal mushrooms are safe to take in supplement form, they’re not appropriate for everyone.

For example, reishi mushroom products may cause side effects such as headache and dizziness and aren’t recommended for people with certain health conditions, such as bleeding disorders.14

Also, the safety of medicinal mushrooms during pregnancy and breastfeeding hasn’t been researched, so people who are pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid drinking mushroom coffee and taking other medicinal mushroom products.15

It’s important to avoid ingesting medicinal mushroom products like mushroom coffee if you’re taking certain medications, such as blood pressure-lowering medications, or have one or more health conditions. Some medicinal mushrooms have been shown to interact with common medications and may not be safe for those with medical issues, so it’s best to check with your healthcare provider to ensure medicinal mushroom products are the right choice for you.1415

Lastly, mushroom coffee is much more expensive than regular coffee. For example, a 12-ounce bag of Earth & Star Hazelnut Mushroom Coffee costs more than double the price of a 12-ounce bag of Jim’s Organic Hazelnut Ground Coffee.

Because there are no proven benefits of mushroom coffee and because most mushroom coffee products don’t disclose the amount of medicinal mushrooms in their products, mushroom coffee may not be worth the cost.