Medicinal mushrooms

For most Americans, winter is synonymous with cold and flu season. Every year between the months of November and March, the common cold strikes 1 billion people while the flu affects 30-50 million and causes 36,000 deaths. Clearly, these numbers are nothing to sneeze at and with the threat of more serious viral infections on the rise, taking active measures to strengthen the body's immune defenses and ward off infection is more important than ever. Research conducted over the past several years at the US Defense Department's BioShield Biodefense screening program suggests that one of the best ways to create a "shield of protection" against viral infections may be to use medicinal mushrooms.

Mushrooms have a rich and intriguing history of use as both food and medicine that dates back more than 10,000 years. Reishi mushroom has been used in China and Japan for nearly 4000 years to treat liver problems, asthma, cancer, high blood pressure and arthritis. In 65 C.E., the Greek physician Dioscorides first described the medicinal use of a mushroom known as Agarikon as a broad-acting immune tonic, with a special affinity for the lungs. The mushroom known as Birch Polypore was discovered in the pouch of a 5300-year-old Stone Age man found frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991. It was speculated that he was carrying the mushroom to treat a gastrointestinal infection.

The profound immune benefits of medicinal mushrooms have been commanding the attention of researchers in Asia for nearly 50 years. More recently, researchers in the United Stated are conducting government-funded studies on the effects of the mushrooms on cancer, cholesterol, and infectious diseases. It is notable that we humans share 30% of our DNA with the fungal kingdom (verses 10% with the plant kingdom), of which mushrooms are the most visible member. As a result, the bacteria and viruses that attack mushrooms also attack humans. Mushrooms protect themselves from these invaders by secreting natural antimicrobial substances into their environment. When properly harvested and prepared using cold water and alcohol, these powerful mushroom defense compounds can be used by humans to ward off infections… infections that pharmaceutical drugs cannot adequately treat or prevent.

When researchers at the BioShield program tested 200,000 natural and pharmaceutical agents for activity against smallpox, a deadly virus that some fear could be used as biological weapon, they found that two of the top ten most powerful anti-pox agents were extracts of the Agarikon mushroom. They went on to study the effects of Agarikon as well as Red Reishi and Birch Polypore on a number of other viruses and found they were highly active. Try as they may, the researchers could not identify any one single compound in the extracts responsible for the anti-viral effects, an observation that led them to conclude that the effects must be dependent on synergistic interactions amongst dozens if not hundreds of compounds present in the whole mushroom extracts. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts. As a naturopathic physician, I know this phenomenon well, and am thrilled to see it validated by modern science.

In addition to providing active anti-microbial compounds, medicinal mushrooms are a rich source of polysaccharides, long complex sugar molecules more commonly known as "glyconutrients." Some of the best known polysaccharides are beta-glucans, but dozens of others have been identified and are equally if not more active. They have been shown to activate immune cells known as Natural Killer cells and macrophages, which are considered to be our body's first line defenders against infections and cancer cells. In other words, mushrooms supply compounds that "wake up" the immune system to potential danger.

Whole mushrooms such as Red Reishi, Agarikon and Birch Polypore are safe to use every day. In fact, given the daily assaults on the immune system from stress, poor diet and exposures to environmental toxins, it makes good sense to do so. Since each mushroom species provides a unique array of active antimicrobial and immune supportive compounds, the strongest "shield of protection" is formed when these three species are combined together. Using the liquid mushroom extracts in the form of a throat spray positions the shield exactly where your body needs it most. Viruses beware!