Ancient Knowledge Confirmed by Modern Science

As a marketing director at a food company and having had pharmaceutical experience too, the nutraceutical crossover between the two industries has always been very intriguing to me.

I am always on the lookout for the latest and greatest supplement or ingredient to incorporate into my product development pipeline. Many times, the latest insights align with traditional medicinal insights, as the science confirms tradition and ancient knowledge.

Humankind has used mushrooms over eons of time in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and many people know that mushrooms have amazing healing powers, but how do they actually work to assist our immune system? Traditional Chinese healers have used mushrooms for detoxing. They have used mushrooms for their cleansing effect on the body and also for help with wound healing.

But inspecting this food type, there is a lot more to mushrooms than meets the eye.

Our immune system has five different stages of defence. One of the most important weapons of the immune defence system is the microbiome. The bacteria within the microbiome have a profound effect on our overall health. They estimate that around 70% of our immunity is in the center of our bodies. This gives new meaning to the saying, “I have a gut feeling” about something.

Mushrooms as a collective have positive effects on longevity, immunity, and inflammation.

The specific carbohydrates found in mushrooms are extremely healthy for creating microbiota within your gut. Mushrooms stimulate the production of butyrate, which is a short-chain fatty acid, which is crucial for our immune system.

Butyrate helps decrease inflammation in the mucosal layer in the gut, and we know this mucous layer is important because it stimulates the growth of immune boosting bacteria. These bacteria have an anticancer effect, by assisting with exposing cancerous tumours that hide themselves in proteins which are healthy and good.

These bacteria essentially work like undercover spies, revealing the clandestine operations of these cloaked and hidden tumours to our immune system. Our immune system cannot recognise these tumours hiding within the proteins, because these proteins are healthy, and therefore not recognised as a threat. This is how these tumours continue to grow in the presence of a healthy immune system.

But butyrate helps with growing the ‘seek and destroy’ immune system bacteria that uncloak and expose the tumours hiding beneath the proteins. Once the bacteria expose these tumours, our immune system can then destroy them.

Butyrate also helps with T cell production in the gut and provides energy to the cells lining the colon.

Some carbohydrates present in mushrooms called beta glucans increase the anti-inflammatory cytokines and reduce pro-inflammatory cytokines, which is what many doctors have warned about, we know this as the ‘cytokine storm’ which comes with an overactive immune system. We can achieve regulation of our immune system with the nutrients found in mushrooms. Mushrooms are amazing, what a superfood.

But mushrooms regulate not only the immune system. They also increase killer cells and microphages that respond to infection sites within our bodies.

So what does all the above say about mushrooms? Include them in your diet wherever you can, with health and immunity credentials like this, it’s hard to fault them. The Ancient Chinese were wise about nutrition and the health properties of mushrooms, ancient knowledge we would do well to follow today.

So recapping this is how mushrooms help our immunity.

They assist with creating a favourable mucosal layer which stimulates the production of immune boosting bacteria. These bacteria uncloak the tumours which hide behind or within proteins. Butyrate also assists with producing T cells which are key for our immunity. Beta glucans are carbohydrates within mushrooms that regulate the immune system to guard against a pro inflammatory cytokine storms.

Mushrooms are magic for our immunity and personally I am happy that I love the taste of them.