BODY. Mushrooms As Immunomodulators.
I feel so fortunate to have attended naturopathic medical school in a forested state park just north of Seattle. Those woods taught me a lot throughout my four years. And one was slowing down enough to notice all that was changing with each season, with each week.
In the slowed Fall season, I discovered that mushrooms grow abundantly here in the PNW, as well as most other ecosystems in some form. With the guidance of experienced mushroom foragers, I learned some I definitely felt safe harvesting for eating, and others to leave to keep working on the downed nurse logs. Of course, free food from the forest while in grad school was bonus for this once-stingy student. But, I also became more interested and invested in the medicinal uses of the mushrooms I was finding and how they contributed to human health.
Mushrooms are an ever-increasingly trendy health food. Now added to coffee and hot cocoa blends, it seems most are at least aware that there is a mycellium rising movement that is happening. While I cannot guarantee quality, processing or amount in most commercially available mushroom powder combo products (likely, not that much), I will tell you to buy (or safely forage with an experienced mycophile) mushrooms to consume in some way every day.
For the broadest look at this Kingdom of food, mushrooms can be thought of as immunomodulators. This means that there are some credible and quality studies on showing mushroom’s effects on the human immune system to up-regulate certain components to make it more effective in killing unwanted invaders, such as viruses, cancer cells or even tamping down autoimmunity. Mushrooms can help to increase anti-inflammatory components of the immune system and decrease inflammatory proteins.
While I do personally take mushrooms in some form of powder every day, eating some form of shiitake,, oyster or other mushroom that can be found in the grocery store is also a staple of my diet. I have an intense family history of autoimmune disease, and I think the amount of mushrooms I consume help to modulate my risk. And research agrees (see some citations at the bottom).
I think of mushrooms almost as a check on my immune system - like a more efficient version of TSA - making sure there’s nothing too dangerous coming through or brewing and that also gives a quick scan to all the moving components. And if there is something a-brewing, well then I have the extra ammo needed for my system to face it with a bit of a stronger army.
Today, on my long Sunday trail run, I found some Turkey Tail growing that I put into a broth for soup for the week (see thumbnail picture for this post on the main writing page). And even if you do not have the environmental, physical or educational resources to go looking, they are widely available in most grocery stores. I also bought some shiitake mushrooms this week and have added them to the base of a pasta sauce.
Eat your medicine!
Zhao S, Gao Q, Rong C, Wang S, Zhao Z, Liu Y, Xu J. Immunomodulatory Effects of Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms and Their Bioactive Immunoregulatory Products. J Fungi (Basel). 2020 Nov 8;6(4):269. doi: 10.3390/jof6040269. PMID: 33171663; PMCID: PMC7712035.
Lull C, Wichers HJ, Savelkoul HF. Antiinflammatory and immunomodulating properties of fungal metabolites. Mediators Inflamm. 2005 Jun 9;2005(2):63-80. doi: 10.1155/MI.2005.63. PMID: 16030389; PMCID: PMC1160565.
Valverde ME, Hernández-Pérez T, Paredes-López O. Edible mushrooms: improving human health and promoting quality life. Int J Microbiol. 2015;2015:376387. doi: 10.1155/2015/376387. Epub 2015 Jan 20. PMID: 25685150; PMCID: PMC4320875.
Guggenheim AG, Wright KM, Zwickey HL. Immune Modulation From Five Major Mushrooms: Application to Integrative Oncology. Integr Med (Encinitas). 2014 Feb;13(1):32-44. PMID: 26770080; PMCID: PMC4684115.
