Medicinal Mushrooms for Cancer? Here’s What the Research Says.
Did you know that we human beings are more closely related to mushrooms than to plants? This is something that I learned from my podcast guest Robert Rogers, who explained to me the medicinal mushroom benefits, and their importance for health, healing, and immunity. He trained to be a botanist before he got involved in herbal healing modalities, especially medicinal mushrooms. He and I had an interesting conversation about mushrooms and cancer, the therapeutic properties of various different types of mushrooms, the issues related to over-gathering and more in this episode of The Adiel Gorel Show.
What are medicinal mushrooms?
When Robert Rogers first began his clinical practice, a lot of his patients were people with cancer undergoing chemo and/ or radiation. At this time, he started to work with Reishi, a type of ganoderma mushroom, and Turkey Tail, another type of mushroom. This was used as an adjunct to help alleviate some of the side effects of chemo. To his surprise, he found that medicinal mushroom benefits included help in improving the experience of chemo. People were less sick and more healthful through the regime.
This inspired him to do further research into medicinal mushrooms, which he had always enjoyed picking and photographing. Robert Rogers has written over 50 books including the popular book The Fungal Pharmacy: The Complete Guide to Medicinal Mushrooms and Lichens of North America. Apart from the medicinal properties of over 300 mushrooms, the book introduces readers to the traits, properties, chemical compositions, and preparation methods of mushrooms.
Anti-inflammatory and other therapeutic medicinal mushroom benefits.
When you read the medicinal mushrooms benefits such as Reishi, especially their anti-inflammatory impacts, have been widely studied in human clinical trials. This is good for health, reduces inflammation, and also helps to maintain a healthy immune system, possibly preventing aberrant cells turning cancerous. This type of mushroom is seen to help with immune modulation, and can also benefit people with prostate and some other types of cancer as has been seen in double-blind placebo-controlled trials.
There seems to be ample evidence of medicinal mushroom benefits, and this is borne out by clinical trials. One clinical trial conducted in Japan examined the outcomes of 400 cancer patients in a double-blind trial. The control group of 200 people received a placebo whereas the other group was asked to take one gram twice a day of the Turkey Tail Mycelium product. They found that the placebo group survived an average of 4.6 years after surgery while the Turkey Tail group lived an average of 10.6 years.
This is a very significant difference and yet the medical community in general tends to be dismissive of these healing properties. This information about this therapy adjunct should be available at every oncology center because of the way it helps manage chemo symptoms and even improves survival rates.
The mushroom Lion’s Mane is seen to be beneficial for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s, but Rogers has found it difficult to obtain financing for its study. I myself have had a doctor friend of mine mock mushroom supplements that I have been taking. Robert Rogers is of the view that people are prevented from giving truly informed consent with regard to the treatment protocols they opt for because they are simply not given all the relevant information.
The fact is that big pharma stands to gain nothing from propagating medicinal mushroom benefits, and it is perhaps up to us to do our own research into the subject. You can start by tuning into my podcast with Robert Rogers where we also speak about Tibetan mushrooms and more. I found our conversation very illuminating – you will as well.
