There is a significant buzz within the cancer community concerning the benefit of mushrooms for cancer patients. I recently wrote an article on Medicinal Mushrooms and yesterday I discovered some more information that I believe could be helpful for you.
The benefits of Mushrooms
Mushrooms are in fact pretty fantastic. In accessory for their culinary delights, many common mushrooms make the perfect source of protein, antioxidants, fiber, B vitamins (In my opinion they’re one of the only vegetarian causes of B12, though it is minimal) as well as vitamin D, a vitamin that's known to be without many breast cancer patients.
Research on mushrooms reveal that they have antiviral, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant benefits with potent immune bolstering benefits.
The special moment Part of the Mushroom
Probably the most potent and beneficial area of the mushroom is the mycelium - the part around the underside from the mushroom cap that you could see within the photo. The mycelium offers the “magic” ingredients that confer a lot of health benefits of mushroom.
China have been using mushrooms to aid their health for centuries and you might 't be aware of it however, many widely used drugs in Western medicine are based on mushrooms, penicillin being typically the most popular.
One Passionate Man and the Research
Based on Paul Stamets, DSc, among the world’s leading mycologists and author of “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Might help Save The World” there are approximately 150,000 types of mushrooms which about 5% have “interesting nutritional or medicinal properties”.
Stamets was active in the study “Phase 1 Medical trial of Trametes versicolor in females With Breast Cancer” and it is on the advisory committee from the trial’s second phase. Trametes versicolor (also called turkey tail) improved the natural defenses of cancer of the breast patients after chemotherapy and radiation.
Now that’s the type of research I love to see - NOT involving synthetic drugs!
A good thing I wanted to talk about was that Paul Stamets’ own mother was identified as having Stage 4 cancer of the breast and given 3 months to live. She took turkey tail mushrooms and it is still around, three years later, without any detectable tumors. Sadly, the content I read didn’t mention what dosage she was taking, however, the phase 1 medical trial (link above) did - see item 6 below.
6 Sound advice For Taking Mushroom Supplements For Healing
- Ensure the product you buy has a minimum of 10% to 12% polysaccharides.
- Attempt to take only certified organic mushroom supplements - specifically if you have active cancer within your body.
- See my post which mushrooms possess the most research to back them up.
- Have a natural ascorbic acid supplement together with your mushrooms to enhance absorption.
- Some have found it useful to take the mushroom supplement for any month, stop for several days, then begin again.
- Based on the Phase 1 medical trial mentioned above, as much as 9 grams daily of Trametes versicolor would be a safe and tolerable dose in females with cancer of the breast - that’s 9,000 mg! Experiment with this for yourself though - begin with a lesser dosage and build up to 9,000 mg to determine how well you tolerate it.
