Mushrooms

[beach sunrise]

Value in Traditional Medicine
Mushrooms are important for cancer patients. If you find yourself in a dangerous situation, vis-a-vis the state of your immune system, you will be urgently looking for a solution. We believe that the tools of naturopathic medicine can be of great benefit in this regard. And we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Most cultures have long traditions of healing that we can draw on. Each of these pre-scientific cultures maintained their people’s health using mainly foods, herbs, fasting, bathing, etc. Although this was far from scientific in the modern sense, it contained much of value.

The main repositories of this ancient folk wisdom lie in the traditional medicine traditions of various countries. Some of the outstanding examples are from China (TCM), India (Ayurveda), Japan (Kampo), Korea (TKM), and so forth. Fans of the PBS series, Cadfael, got a glimpse into the roots (literally) of the British and European traditions. We have visited historic pharmacies in Germany, such as in Heidelberg Castle, Schloss Heidelberg, where the Latin designation of the old medicines points to their herbal origins.

Such traditions contain a lot of dross and even some dangerous prescriptions (such as ingesting mercury). But on the other hand, it is urgently important not to discard these traditions entirely. We often draw, directly or indirectly, on traditional medicines. One such example is the use of medicinal mushrooms, especially for their positive impact on the immune system.

For many people, “mushrooms” are simply the bland white or brown buttons (Agaricus bisporus) found shrink-wrapped in the vegetable section of the supermarket. And, yes, white button mushrooms do appear to have mild anti-cancer effects! For example, in a small clinical trial at the City of Hope, Duarte, California, button mushrooms lowered the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) level of some prostate cancer patients. In other laboratory studies, button mushrooms also had desirable effects on lung, colon, and brain cancer cells.

Other Fungi
But there are innumerable other fungi, many of which have much greater immune-enhancing and anti-cancer effects. These include Shiitake, Maitake, and Oyster (among the culinary mushrooms) and Turkey Tail, Oyster, and Reishi (among the medicinal ones). These have been used medicinally in Asia for eons. Shiitake alone has given rise to licensed drugs that are used for treating cancer patients in China and Japan. In addition, Chaga is not a mushroom, but it is a fungus. It forms as a black-and-orange growth on wounded birch trees located within or above 44 parallel north.

(Yang Y, Zhao H, Barrero RA, et al. Genome sequencing and analysis of the paclitaxel-producing endophytic fungus Penicillium aurantiogriseum NRRL 62431. BMC Genomics. 2014;15:69. Published 2014 Jan 25. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-15-69)
There is no category of consumer anticancer agents more important than these exotic fungi.

According to Australian scientists, “mushrooms represent an enormous unexplored source of potentially useful and novel lectins,” as well as other compounds. They are very complex.

(Singh RS, Kaur HP, Kanwar JR. Mushroom Lectins as Promising Anticancer Substances. Curr Protein Pept Sci. 2016;17(8):797-807. doi:10.2174/1389203717666160226144741)
The market for these mushrooms is huge and growing. The medicinal mushroom extract market is projected to reach a worldwide value of $15.38 billion by 2026. Yet few things in the CAM world are as fraught with controversy. There are numerous claims, but overall an inadequate amount of documentation. And, sad to say, in an unregulated market, fraud is always a possibility.

For example, according to a study in Nature, only 5 out of 19 (26%) reishi mushroom products (Ganoderma lucidum or Lingzhi) on the American market contained any reishi of all! When consumerlab.com studied the topic a few years later most of the reishi products did contain some reishi, but there were numerous problems. Some of the supplements did not contain the amount of the crucial 1-3, D-beta-glucans stated on the label. Some were not even derived from “mushrooms” at all, in the usual sense: they were manufactured from the much cheaper “mycelium” (plural, mycelia) or root system and grown on cakes of brown rice instead of the more traditional wood. The health effects of mycelia are less certain than the fruiting bodies. Yet some leading companies called their mycelia-based products “mushrooms,” and even showed above-ground fruiting bodies on their labels.

According to one manufacturer:

“Few people realize that hot water extracts are the only kind of mushroom supplements ever used or studied in scientific research and the only method of preparation used in traditional herbal practice. Other mushroom companies sell mushroom and/or mycelium tinctures preserved in alcohol (a.k.a. “cold water extracts”), or unextracted mycelium powder (made by growing mushroom mycelium on sterilized rice). These supplemental forms have never been studied in the research, have never been used in traditional herbal practice, and are a fraction of the potency as compared to hot water extracts.”
Finally, in the consumerlab.com test, the amount of the key 1-3, D-beta-glucans in the samples ranged from 5.6 mg to 264.5 milligrams per serving, and the cost of 100 mg of beta-glucans varied from 7¢ to $19.01! That’s a huge difference.

Mushroom Combinations
While individual mushrooms such as reishi are important, they work much better if one takes a variety of them at the same time. As proof, scientists at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, showed that a combination of three to five mushrooms is ten times as effective at inhibiting cancer cells than any single extract. Here is a key chart:


“A comparison of blended mushroom extracts with mushroom products from single mushroom products shows that blended mushroom extracts exhibit significantly stronger cell-killing effects on human tumor cell lines.” (edited)
The Croatian formula “Agarikon.1” is sold over the internet from the company’s webshop. They recommend taking 1 tablet 3 times per day for better health, 2 tablets 3 times per day for more serious cases, and 3 tablets 2 times per day for the most serious cases (presumably for people actively battling cancer). The price is $60 for 90 tablets, so 6 per day will cost you $4 per day. However, there is also a $10 (regular post) or $38 (DHL) shipping charge, as well as the possibility of “additional costs to you due to customs in your country.” This becomes expensive and complicated for non-European customers.