The use of mushrooms in medicine

Mushrooms have always been one of the gifts of nature used by humans as food products , medicines , sometimes - and especially hallucinogens .

The medical use of mushrooms is based on the vast experience of traditional (folk) medicine ^[1] .

Fungotherapy is a method of treating various human diseases, based on the use of medicinal mushrooms and complex preparations from them. Methods of processing mushrooms to obtain fungicides are not focused on the selection of chemically pure active substance, but on preserving the entire complex of active substances in the simplest and closest to natural forms ( decoction , infusion , extract , etc.) ^[2] .

This method was born and developed in the Far East (Japan and China). The physician Wu Xing left us a treatise on medicinal mushrooms, where he described the properties of more than 100 types of mushrooms that grow in China and Japan ^[3] .

Getting antibiotics against infectious diseases

Oncology

Polysaccharides, polysaccharide-peptide and polyphenolic complexes secreted by fungal cells primarily have an immunomodulating effect (activation of T-lymphocytes and natural killers through the complement system), and a number of low molecular weight products of secondary fungal metabolism (various terpenoids) have a direct effect on the tumor, initiating apoptosis by blocking angiogenesis or directing moderately differentiated cancer cells to the differentiation pathway ^[4] . Moreover, the immunomodulatory effect of substances produced by fungi is more pronounced than their direct antitumor effects.

Many mushrooms are currently used as medicinal products, they are used in the form of food, dietary supplements , tinctures, extracts , etc. One of the most important areas of research at present is the determination of the possibility of using drugs from natural raw materials as medicines for cancer ^{[5 ]} , ^[6] .

Some of the mushrooms are very widely known.

Ganoderma ( Ganoderma applanatum , Ganoderma lucidum (Lynchi, Reishi)

The fruiting bodies of the varnished tinder fungus , Ganoderma lucidum , as well as other types of tinder fungus from the genus Ganoderma are well known as a traditional medicine in the countries of Southeast Asia ( China , Korea , Japan ). The Chinese name for this tree mushroom is Lynchi, the meaning of this name is “the plant of the soul” (traditional Chinese spelling: 靈芝; Chinese: 灵芝; Japanese: Reishi; Korean: yeongji, hangul: 영지). Some types of Ganoderma have been used in traditional oriental medicine for thousands of years. In Japan, this mushroom is called as Reishi, and under this name it is most often known in the West. The medical effect of Reishi is associated with the presence of triterpenes , including hypodermic acid , as well as polysaccharides , beta-glucans ^[7] , ^[8] .

• Edible mushrooms
• Poisonous mushrooms
• Phytotherapy