Medicinal Use
Medicinal mushrooms are mushrooms or extracts from mushrooms that are used or studied as possible treatments for diseases. Research has shown some medicinal mushroom isolates that have promising cardiovascular, anticancer, antiviral, antibacterial, antiparasitic, anti-inflammatory, and antidiabetic properties. Currently, several extracts (polysaccharide-K, polysaccharide peptide, lentinan) have widespread use in Japan, Korea and China, as adjuvants to radiation treatments and chemotherapy.
The concept of a medicinal mushroom has a history spanning millennia in parts of Asia. Only a few mushroom extracts have been extensively tested for efficacy. The available results for most other extracts, are on isolated cell lines, animal research with rodents, or small clinical human trials.
Read more about this topic: Edible Mushroom
Famous quotes related to medicinal use:
“Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell me some medicinal use for every plant I could show him ... proving himself as good as his word. According to his account, he had acquired such knowledge in his youth from a wise old Indian with whom he associated, and he lamented that the present generation of Indians ‘had lost a great deal.’”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)