|
|
Medicinal Mushrooms
Treating Illness and Maintaining Health with Fungi |
|
MEDICA > MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS...
|
Discover an Amazing World...
Beginning with three astonishing videos that provide an overview of the mycological realm, this page presents a brief introduction to the mycelium,
then focuses on a more in-depth examination of the adaptogenic and therapeutic uses of mushrooms, including immune enhancement and the treatment of a wide range of conditions and illnesses.
A list of mycological journals, two search functions, and selected references are provided for additional research and study. Top-level resources are presented, for those
interested in growing their own mushrooms or obtaining organic extracts and proprietary formulations, as well as recommended books and a few related videos. |
|
Source: Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
Paul Stamets, Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press (2005:2-3,39) Links added.
A preview of this book is available at Google Book Search.
I believe that mycellium1 2 3 is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind. The mycelium stays in
constant molecular communication with its environment, devising diverse enzymatic and chemical responses to complex challenges. These not only survive, but sometimes expand to thousands of acres in size, achieving the greatest mass of any living
organism on this planet. That mycelia can spread enormous cellular mats across thousands of acres is a testimonial to a successful and versatile evolutionary strategy.
The History of Fungal Networks
Animals are more closely related to fungi than to any other kingdom. More than 600 million years ago we shared a common ancestry. Fungi evolved a means of externally digesting food by secreting acids and enzymes into their immediate environs and then absorbing nutrients
using netlike cell chains. Fungi marched onto land more than a billion years ago. Many fungi partnered with plants, which largely lacked these digestive juices. Mycologists believe that the alliance allowed plants
to inhabit land around 700 million years ago. Many millions of years later, one evolutionary branch of fungi led to the development of animals. The branch of fungi leading to animals evolved to capture nutrients by surrounding their food with
cellular sacs, essentially primitive stomachs. As species emerged from aquatic habitats, organisms adapted means to prevent moisture loss. In terrestrial creatures, skin composed of many layers of cells emerged
as a barrier against infection. Taking a different evolutionary path, the mycelium retained its net-like form of interweaving chains of cells and went underground, forming a vast food web upon which life flourished. [...]
  |
[...] Animals have a more common ancestry with fungi than with any other kingom, diverging about 650 million years ago. A new super-kingdom, Opisthokonta1 2, has been erected to encompass the kingdoms Fungi and Animalia under this one taxonomic concept [...]
Wild Medicinal Mushrooms of North America
Preliminary studies on mushrooms have revealed novel antibiotics, anticancer chemotherapeutic agents, immunomodulators, and a slew of active constituents.
The follow charts list a few of them. For more information on the medicinal properties of mushrooms, please consult MycoMedicinals: An Informational Treatise on Mushrooms, by Paul Stamets and C. Dusty Yao (2002), and
Medicinal Mushrooms: An Exploration of Tradition, Healing & Culture , by Christopher Hobbs (2003). |
|
|
|
Mushroom Helps Combat
Prostate Cancer Cells
In their quest to find new ways to fight cancer, researchers are increasingly turning to nature. They’re discovering that many of the vegetables we regularly consume
in our diet —notably mushrooms—are potent cancer killers. A new study in the journal Nutrition and Cancer finds that the white button mushroom is particularly effective
against prostate cancer.
A number of different mushroom species have been investigated for their cancer-fighting properties. “I think mushrooms, and especially medicinal mushrooms, are being
used to prevent cancer because they potentially have the ability to affect immune function in our bodies,” says study author Shiuan Chen, PhD, Professor and Director
of the Division of Tumor Cell Biology at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope in Duarte, California.
In previous studies, Dr. Chen and his colleagues discovered that the white button mushroom was effective at suppressing the spread of breast cancer cells. For
this study, the researchers again focused on the white button mushroom, but this time for its potential effect on prostate cancer cells.
Although it hasn’t been as well studied as medicinal mushrooms, the white button mushroom has the advantage of being edible, which makes it ideal for studying dietary
cancer interventions, according to Dr. Chen. White button mushrooms contain a healthy fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), which is believed to be one
of the active components responsible for halting cancer cell growth.
During this study, the researchers investigated the effects of a white button mushroom extract on prostate cancer cell lines in the laboratory, and in mice injected
with prostate cancer. When prostate cancer cells in the lab were treated with the mushroom extract for a period of four days, the cancer spread was markedly reduced
compared to untreated cells, and an increased number of cancer cells died. The higher the dose of mushroom extract, the greater the effect on the cancer cells.
The mushroom extract appeared to work equally well on both hormone-dependent and hormone-independent prostate cancers. [Read More]
|
Herbal Extract Fights
Drug-Resistant Lung Cancer
The Chinese herb Ganoderma kills small-cell lung cancer cells that are resistant to many chemotherapy drugs, and it may prove a life-saving addition to current cancer
therapy, according to a new study in Cancer Letters.
Small-cell lung cancer is particularly difficult to treat because the cancer spreads rapidly throughout the body, rather than forming large tumors that
can be removed surgically. To treat this cancer, doctors typically turn to chemotherapy, which attacks cancer cells throughout the body.
Chemotherapy can have severe side effects though, because it attacks healthy cells as well as cancerous ones. And over time, lung cancer can become resistant to
the effects of chemotherapy, rendering it virtually ineffective. “The chemotherapy would still work, but you’d have to use a dose that would be so toxic that the
patient could not tolerate it,” explains lead study author David Sadava, PhD, Pritzker Foundation Professor of Biology at the Keck Science Center in Claremont,
California and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California.
Patients who have been told their cancer is not treatable often turn to alternative therapies, including herbs. The mushroom extract Ganoderma lucidum is
one of the most popular of these herbs. It is widely available in health food stores as the Japanese herbal remedy, Reishi and the Chinese herb, Ling Zhi.
Ganoderma lucidum has been studied for its effects on leukemia, as well as on cancers of the breast, bladder, colon, and prostate. For the first time, Dr. Sadava
and his team set out to investigate its effects on small-cell lung cancer. They also decided to look at 20 of the more than 250 other Ganoderma species in existence,
to see if they too might have a benefit. [Read More]
| |
|
Source: Medicinal Mushrooms: Their therapeutic properties and current
medical usage with special emphasis on cancer treatments
Smith JE, Rowan NJ, Sullivan R. 2002. Cancer Research UK
CHAPTER 3 MEDICINALLY IMPORTANT MUSHROOMS, pp.24,27,31
Synopsis
Many edible and non-edible mushrooms have long been used
worldwide, especially in the Orient, for medicinal purposes.
This Chapter gives a brief summary of the most important and
widely used species. In each case their historical and current
traditional use is considered together, where appropriate, with
their commercial and modern medical applications. Important
pharmaceutical products with proven medical applications have
been derived from Ganoderma spp., Lentinus edodes,
Schizophyllum commune, Tremella fusiformis, Trametes
versicolor, and Grifola frondosa, and more recently Phellinus
and Hericium erinaceus.
Ganoderma lucidum and Ganoderma tsugae:
G. lucidum and related species have the longest historical usage for medicinal
purposes, dating back at least four millennia (Zhao and Zeuny, 1994). In Japan it is
called Reishi or Mannetake (10,000 year mushroom) and in China and Korea it is
variously called Ling Chu, Ling Chih and Ling Zhi (Mushroom of Immortality). It is
the mushroom most depicted in ancient Japanese, Korean and Chinese Art and has
been extensively depicted in Chinese royal tapestries. Reishi is also widely used in
the Orient as a talisman to protect a person or home against evil. The fungus grows
in many parts of the world and in Japan is to be found mainly on old plum trees.
Originally, rare and expensive it can now be artificially cultivated, which makes it
more accessible and affordable.
The mushroom and mycelium contain steroids, lactones, alkaloids,
polyssacharides and triterpenes. Pharmacologically, a number of the water-soluble
polysaccharides have demonstrated antitumour and immunostimulating activities. At
least 100 different alcohol-soluble triterpenes have been identified including highly
oxidised lanostane-type triterpenoids such as ganoderic, ganoderenic, lucidenic, and
ganolucidic acids. These triterpenoids have been shown to possess adaptogenic
and antihypertensive as well as anti-allergic properties.
This mushroom possesses many different medicinal properties dependent on
the stage and environment of its growth (Jong and Birmingham, 1992, Liu, 1999).
Traditionally, it has been widely used in the treatment of hepatopathy, chronic
hepatitis, nephritis, hypertension, arthritis, neurastheine, insomnia, bronchitis,
asthma and gastric ulcers. Scientific studies have confirmed that substances
extracted from the mushroom can reduce blood pressure, blood cholesterol and
blood sugar levels as well as inhibit platelet aggregations (Table 2). Reishi extracts
have been highly effective in alleviating altitude sickness and also in treating
myotonia dystrophica. Several major biochemicals such as polysaccharides,
proteins and triterpenoids with potent immuno-modulating action have been isolated
from Ganoderma spp. The major immuno-modulating effects of these active
substances include mitogenicity and activation of immune effector cells such as T
cells, macrophages and natural killer cells resulting in the production of cytokines,
including interleukins, tumour necrosis factor-α and interferons. The therapeutic
action of G. lucidum as an anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory agent has been
associated with its immuno-modulating properties (Wang et al., 1977). While the
extensive range of traditional medical treatments with this mushroom have not yet
been fully substantiated by modern scientific standards they are being extensively
scrutinised in the Far East and the USA (Chang, 1995, 1999, Chen and Miles, 1996).
In view of its bitter taste and indigestible structure (often similar to varnished wood in
appearance) this is not an edible mushroom but, in hot water extracted form, it is
available worldwide in tablet and liquid products (Stamets, 1999).
This review highlights some of the recently isolated and identified substances of higher Basidiomycetes mushrooms origin that express promising antitumor, immune
modulating, cardiovascular and hypercholesterolemia, antiviral, antibacterial, and antiparasitic effects. Medicinal mushrooms have a long history of use in folk
medicine. In particular, mushrooms useful against cancers of the stomach, esophagus, lungs, etc. are known in China, Russia, Japan, Korea, as well as the U.S.A.
and Canada. There are about 200 species of mushrooms that have been found to markedly inhibit the growth of different kinds of tumors. Searching for new antitumor
and other medicinal substances from mushrooms and to study the medicinal value of these mushrooms have become a matter of great significance. However, most of the
mushroom origin antitumor substances have not been clearly defined. Several antitumor polysaccharides such as hetero-beta-glucans and their protein complexes (e.g.,
xyloglucans and acidic beta-glucan-containing uronic acid), as well as dietary fibers, lectins, and terpenoids have been isolated from medicinal mushrooms. In Japan,
Russia, China, and the U.S.A. several different polysaccharide antitumor agents have been developed from the fruiting body, mycelia, and culture medium of various
medicinal mushrooms (Lentinus edodes, Ganoderma lucidum, Schizophyllum commune, Trametes versicolor, Inonotus obliquus, and Flammulina velutipes). Both cellular
components and secondary metabolites of a large number of mushrooms have been shown to effect the immune system of the host and therefore could be used to treat
a variety of disease states.
|
|
Source: Medicinal Mushrooms:
An Exploration of Tradition, Healing, & Culture
Christopher Hobbs LAc, Summertown TN: Botanica Press
(2003:96,100-101,103)
For references, please see the book.
Medicinal Fungi Monographs, GANODERMA LUCIDUM (W. Curt.: Fr.) Karst.
(gan=shiny; derm=skin; lucidum=shining)
Pharmacological Effects of Whole Reishi Extracts In Vivo and In Vitro
- Analgesic
(Chang & But, 1986)
- Anti-allergic activity
- Bronchitis-preventative effect, inducing regeneration of bronchial epithelium
(Chang & But, 1986)
- Anti-inflammatory
- Antibacterial, against Staphylococci, Streptococci, and Bacillus pneumoniae,
(perhaps due to increased immune system activity)
(Hsu, 1990)
- Antioxidant, by eliminating hydroxyl free radicals
(Wang et al., 1985; Chen & Zhang, 1987)
- Antitumor activity
- Antiviral effect, by inducing interferon production
- Lowers blood pressure
- Enhances bone marrow nucleated cell proliferation
(Jia et al., 1993b)
- Cardiotonic action, lowering serum cholesterol levels with no effect on triglycerides, enhancing myocardial metabolism of hypoxic animals, and
improving coronary artery hemodynamics
(Chang & But, 1986; Chen & Zhang, 1987)
- Central depressant and peripheral anticholinergic actions on the autonomic nervous sytem reduce the effects of caffeine and relax muscles (Chang & But, 1986; Kashara & Hikino, 1987)
- Enhanced natural killer cell (NK) activity in vitro in mice
(Zhang & Yu, 1983)
- Expectorant and antitussive properties demonstrated in mice studies
(Hsu et al;, 1986; Chang & But, 1986)
- General immunopotentiation
(Shin et al., 1986; Chang & But, 1986)
- Anti-HIV activity in vitro and in vivo
(Kim et al., 1994)
- Improved adrenocortical function
- Increased production of Interleukin-1 by murine peritoneal macrophages in vitro
(Jia et al., 1993a)
- Increased production of Interleukin-2 by murine splenocytes in vitro
(Zhang et al., 1993)
- Liver-protective and detosifying effects (Chang & But, 1986)
- No effect on type B monoamine oxidase obtained from mouse brain in vitro
(Dai & Yin, 1987)
- Protection against ionizing radiation when treated with G. lucidum both before and after exposure
(Chang & But, 1986; Hu & But, 1987)
- Slight anti-ulcer activity, perhaps due to the central depressant effect
(Kishara & Hikino, 1987)
- Increase white blood cells and hematoglobin in peripheral blood of mice
(Jia et al., 1993)
Medical Uses
In China and other parts of Asia, G. lucidum is used for many aging-related diseases, such as coronary heart disease, chronic bronchitis, hypertension,
and cancer (Chen & Zhang, 1987), and also as a diuretic, laxative, sedative, and tonic (Liu and Bau, 1980). In China, numerous preparations are made for daily use
to promote health, inducing sound sleep and increasing resistance to infections and heart disease, and are also recommended for a wide range of ailments such as
neurasthenia, chronic bronchitis, and coronary heart disease (Yang & Jong, 1989). The Japanese government has officially listed reishi as an adjunct herb for
cancer (Willard, 1990). Preliminary clinical reports and practitioner experience seems to indicate that its immunostimulating polysaccharides may make it useful for people
who are HIV positive, as well as for those who have Epstein Barr Virus (EBV), an infectious virus that causes mononucleosis (Dharmananda, 1988). Because of a high adenosine
content (e.g. 150 mg%), reishi was not advised for use by hemophiliacs, but a pilot study in five HIV-positive hemophiliacs given reishi extract (adenosine intake, 1.35 mg/day)
found no changes in blood aggregatibility, and it was concluded that the extract could be safely used by these patients (Gau et al., 1990). It is important to note that the
adenosine content of various strains of G. lucidum varies greatly, and that a number of other species of medicinal mushrooms also contain adenosine in significant
quantities, namely, Cordyceps sinensis, Auricularia polytricha, and Lentinula edodes (Shiao et al., 1994).
Other uses of G. lucidum include as an antidote for poisonous mushrooms (Ying et al., 1987) and as an ingredient in skin lotions for protecting against UV radiation
(Naeshiro et al., 1992b,d). It is also used for nervous disability, dizziness, hepatitis, nephritis, gastric ulcer, leukopenia, and as an expectorant and antitussive (Chang
and But, 1986; Liu and Bau, 1980; Ying et al., 1987; Huang, 1993).
Reishi extract is being used with favorable results in a Moscow cancer research center for treating cancer patients according to reports given at the First International
Conference on Mushroom Biology and Mushroom Products held in Hong Kong, August 23-26, 1993 (Chilton, 1994). A clinical report from China (Liu, 1994) details a clinician's work
with "Ganoderma detoxification and softening liver soup," which was given to 70,000 patients with a success rate in toxipathic hepatitis of 90%, according
to the author.
In my experience, it is especially suitable as a calming herb for people with anxiety, sleeplessness, or nervousness accompanied by adrenal weakness or general neurasthenia or
deficiency syndromes. In this regard, it is to be much preferred to traditional Western sedative herbs such as valerian, which could be too warm and actually stimulating for some
individuals. | |
|
|
|
| 
