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What's
Up with the Fungi?
by Jill
Nussinow
Press Democrat: Healthtime
Page 1 2 3 4
If this sounds too good to be true, you'll want to explore
this as I did. After a conversation with a colleague about
this article, I drove directly to a natural food store for
a copy of a pamphlet that she'd picked up there. The Nutrition
News issue "Mushrooms: Magic, Myth and Medicine" starts off
with a quote by Andrew Weil, M.D., a well-known alternative
medicine doctor, "The most fascinating aspect of medicinal
mushrooms is enhancing the function and activity of the body's
immune system."
So now I know why one might want to include medicinal mushrooms
in the diet. Figuring out which are the medicinal ones may
be more of a challenge. Gourmet Mushroom's Law and co-owner
Malcolm Clark have been studying medicinal mushrooms for
25 years. Law explains why the field of medicinal mushrooms
isn't better known. The number of mushrooms and other fungi
that exist is staggering. Mycologists (those who study mushrooms)
estimate the number of species at 1.7 million or more. Of
those, only about 70,000 have been identified with about
270 known to be medicinal. So if just five percent of the
yet unidentified fungi have medicinal value, there may possibly
be thousands of medicinal mushrooms at our disposal. Thus,
the fungi world looms large in our future. I have eaten mushrooms
since I was a teenager, as I love their earthy flavor; I've
even gone out hunting for fungi with Richardson for culinary
purposes, though not yet as a source of medicine. But in
the winter at the first sign of a scratchy throat or sniffle,
I grab a bunch of kale, some garlic, ginger and shiitake
mushrooms and either prepare a stir-fry or a soup, into which
I add some miso, and it usually makes me feel better. In
this way mushrooms are immunomodulators. Gerry Camarata,
M.D., a Santa Rosa Integrative Family Medicine practitioner
says, "Mushrooms keep your immune system in balance." While
Law recommends eating mushrooms for their immune enhancing
effects, he is more likely to suggest that people pop a daily
dose of tablets or capsules for more therapeutic use. "Capsules
that contain a combination of medicinal mushrooms taken daily
may help boost the immune system and protect your body from
invasion by viruses and environmental microbes," says Law.
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