According to the market research company AlliedIn 2020, the global market for medicinal, or so-called functional, mushrooms was valued at almost $8 billion and, at that time, it was projected that by 2030 its value would reach $19.3 billion. These products have been used for thousands of years in traditional Chinese medicine and now frequently appear as a fashion trend for health and wellness.
Functional mushrooms are touted as potential cures, from relieving anxiety and depression, improving immunity and cognitive functions, to lowering cholesterol and hypertension. In health food and health food stores, you can find up to 17 different medicinal mushroom powders or supplement products.
“These mushrooms are currently the fashionable product,” said the doctor. Emily Leemingnutrition researcher at King’s College London, to the BBC portal and added: “They are promoted as drugs to potentially help you end anxiety, improve depression, among other benefits for the mind that are claimed on the labels of these products.”
However, the British researcher warned: “I believe that these claims, at this time, are quite exaggerated, we do not have any evidence of these benefits in humans or the evidence that there is is very limited.” Studies on fungi and their effects have been carried out for many years, but most of the research has been carried out in cell cultures or mice and the results, according to experts, do not always translate to humans.
“In China, many studies have been carried out that support the effects that these mushrooms have, but their effects have been studied in cells growing in cultures, or in experiments with mice that have been fed enormous amounts of mushrooms,” he explained. Nicholas Money expert in mycological biology University of Miami to the British environment. “But there is an enormous philosophical and scientific gap between these types of experiments and taking them to the levels of Western medicine to see if they really work,” the specialist clarified.
Money published a review of studies on the effects of medicinal mushrooms in 2016. “My conclusion was no, based on the type of evidence we typically look for when we study prescribed medications. Currently, evidence that these products have any proven effect on human health and well-being does not exist. With medicines what we hope is that they work and that same logic does not apply to medicinal mushrooms,” the researcher concluded.
According to experts, the problem is that medicinal mushrooms are sold as food and are not subject to the same type of regulations that prescription medications are subject to. Currently, there are known 2,300 species of edible mushrooms and called functional in the world. Although those considered therapeutic are less than a dozen.
Among the most recognized are: Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum)which is a polyperous mushroom that has a striking red polished surface, Shitake (Lentinula edodes)a brown mushroom with an intense aroma, Turkey tail (Coriolus versicolor) which is shaped like a fan of multicolored stripes, Cordyceps (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) a famous parasitic fungus that enters dead insects and replaces the host, Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), another parasitic fungus that appears on dead birch trees in an irregular shape with the appearance of burnt charcoal and Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus), It grows in rounded clumps with long white beard-like filaments.
Fungi in their underground networks can absorb and recycle nutrients from the plants around them and have helped produce many basic products of life, including drugs such as the antibiotics penicillin and cephalosporins, and the cholesterol-lowering lovastatin. On the other hand, as a food, mushrooms have enormous nutritional properties, they are an important source of vegetable protein, vitamins D and B, they have several essential amino acids, and they are rich in fiber and minerals.
“I know not everyone likes mushrooms, but they are actually very good as nutritious foods, they are a fabulous source of fiber, and they have a huge amount of beta-glucans, which are a kind of complex carbohydrates,” Leeming pointed out and added: “Mushrooms contain those beta-glucans that are very beneficial for the intestinal microbiome. “But we need much more research to understand how fungi work as specific foods and their impact on our gut bacteria.”
Despite the market for mushroom supplements, pharmaceutical science has not yet begun to explore the potential of mushrooms as medicines. But with advances in extracting genetic information from organisms, there is growing hope that a greater variety of compounds produced by fungi can be isolated, purified and used in specific doses to treat human diseases.
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