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COMMENTARY
Medicinal Mushrooms: Ancient Remedies Meet Modern
Science
Paul Stamets, DSc; Heather Zwickey, PhD
O
ur ancestors have used mushrooms as medicine for
thousands of years. The Greek physician
Hippocrates, circa 450 BCE, classified the amadou
mushroom (Fomes fomentarius) as a potent anti-inflammatory and for cauterizing wounds. The alchemist Tao
Hongjing, from the 5th century, described several medicinal mushrooms, including ling zhi (Ganoderma lucidum)
and zhu ling (Dendropolyporus umbellatus), some in use
reportedly by Shennong many centuries before. Ötzi, the Ice
Man, who lived nearly 5300 years ago, carried amadou and
a birch polypore tethered in a pouch to help him survive in
the Alps of northern Italy. First peoples of North America
used puffball mushrooms (Calvatia genus) as wound healers. Although mushrooms have long been used by various
cultures, only recently has modern science rediscovered
what the ancients knew long ago—that mushrooms can be
deep reservoirs of powerful medicines.
Yet, mushrooms remain an enigma to many in the
medical field, but this ignorance is rapidly changing. The
surge in interest is not only related to the deep cultural
history of their use, but it is also due to modern methods
for tissue culture of mycelium and new methods for testing the activity of individual constituents and their synergies. We know that G lucidum has at least 16 000 genes that
code for more than 200 000 compounds, of which 400 are
“active constituents.” More than 150 novel enzymes have
been identified from mushroom species so far. Clearly,
mushrooms manufacture many novel constituents worthy
of medical investigations. Mushrooms are nature’s miniature pharmaceutical factories, rich in a vast array of novel
constituents and wide open for exploration.
The lag in time for modern science to explore mushrooms for their medicinal properties is probably due to
their nature. Mushrooms are ephemeral—they may be in
our experiential view for just a few days, whereas our
encounters with plants and animals can last months or
years. That some mushrooms can feed you, some can heal
you, some can kill you, and some can send you on a spiritual journey speaks of their diverse chemical constituents.
From an evolutionary and survival point of view, it is safer
to avoid that which is poorly understood yet so powerful.
46
Integrative Medicine • Vol. 13, No. 1 • February 2014
Hence, mushroom medicines have remained an eclectic
science.
While most fleshy mushrooms emerge from mycelium
and reproduce in a few days, the mycelium from which they
arise can live for decades to hundreds of years. The largest
known organism on Earth is a mycelial mat of a honey
mushroom (Armillaria ostoyae) in eastern Oregon—890
hectares and more than 2000 years old. Although the mycelium can survive for centuries, the fleshy fruit bodies last
only a few days. These fine mycelial threads can infuse a
cubic inch of soil with more than 12.9 km of these fungal
filaments. Surrounded by hundreds of millions of hungry
microbes trying to consume it, the mycelium can keep
predators at bay.
In fact, it is likely the mushrooms relationship with
microbes that make them medicinal for humans. Certainly,
mushrooms did not evolve to become medicine for
humans, but rather evolved to survive their own predators.
Similar to medicines that come from botanicals, many of
the chemicals that fungi produce to flourish in the wild are
also active in humans. This is likely not a coincidence. It is
an evolutionary advantage for humans to coevolve with
our environment and our medicines. Prior to the pharmaceutical age, the humans who could use plants and fungi
as medicines were able to survive the diseases that plagued
our world and reproduce.
Using these medicines required both a working
knowledge of toxic versus safe mushrooms and the ability
to physiologically respond to the chemicals they produce.
As we evolved, our bodies capitalized on the fact that
fungi, microbes, insects, and other organisms have different processes to produce molecules than humans do.
Thus, we developed receptors, called pattern recognition
receptors, that bind specifically to nonhuman derived carbohydrates, proteins, nucleic acids, and glucans. When
these pattern recognition receptors bind to mushroom
produced b-glucans, they stimulate the immune system. It
is this immune stimulation that is described by
Guggenheim et al1 in this issue of IMCJ (page 32).
As demonstrated in the Guggenheim review, the array
of responses that we have to mushrooms is astounding.
Stamets—Medicinal Mushrooms
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The literature on human response to mushrooms demonstrates a magnitude and diversity
of effects that appear far greater than the
responses we have to plants. Phylogenetically,
the animal kingdom is more closely related to
mushrooms than it is to plants, and we can
speculate that this relationship is responsible
for the enhanced medicinal benefits we observe.
From mycelium, we are finding a whole
new repertoire of active molecules that interface and potentiate modern medicine in unexpected ways. As we have recognized the value of
mushrooms, we have started to cultivate them
to further exploit their medicinal purposes.
Using solvents different than water is unveiling
whole new sets of active constituents that were
unavailable to our ancestors.
Modern science now recognizes that we
are an ecosystem, that we live in an ecosystem,
and we are born from an ecosystem. Mycelium
is a foundation of nature’s land based food
webs. Understanding the role of mushrooms
and their mycelia in ecosystems empowers their
use in naturopathic medicine in ways that bolster conventional medical practices. We are
now fully engaged in a rapidly emerging scientific revolution in medicinal mushrooms. Our
ancestors would be proud.
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1. Guggenheim AG, Wright KM, Zwickey HL. Immune modulation from five major mushrooms: application to integrative
oncology. Integrative Med Clin J. 2014, 13(1):32-44.
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