Medicinal Mushrooms What You Need To Know

There are a variety of medicinal mushrooms that can be taken to improve health. Used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine, medicinal mushrooms contain powerful benefits that can help boost the immune system and offer the body a natural way to defend itself against its daily encounters with environmental toxins.

The popularity of medicinal mushrooms in the West has been increasing rapidly in recent years, much in part to the growing need for natural and alternative health remedies. There is even a host of scientific research studies that have discovered just how powerful these fungi can be. Studies have shown that medicinal mushrooms contain strong immune boosting properties that may offer help to individuals with cancer, asthma and other chronic illnesses.

Here is a list of the key benefits associated with medicinal mushrooms:

-Restores a weakened immune system
-Improves cardiovascular health and functioning
-Reduces inflammation
-Improves the functioning of the liver
-Prevents the growth of tumor cells
-Enhances cognition and neurological functioning
-Promotes blood sugar balance

Some of the most popular medicinal mushrooms routinely used by herbalists and Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners are Shiitake, Reishi, Maitake, Cordyceps, Agaricus, Coriolus, and Hericium.

Mushrooms live on the bottom of the ecological ladder. Because of their low totem pole status, they have developed a strong immune system response to help protect them against potentially harmful invaders. Mushrooms' ability to fight off potential infections is similar to the way that humans' immune systems have developed over time to protect against viruses, bacteria and pathogens.

When mushrooms are confronted with an invader, they release special polysaccharides, which are long sugar chains, to render the invader ineffective. In essence, they deactivate the power of the invader to inflict any harm. Given this powerful immune response, mushrooms are believed to offer the human immune system enormous health benefits. But these polysaccharides must be pulled out of the mushroom's cell walls so that they can be used in an effective supplement form.

The benchmark process for creating effective medicinal mushroom products uses heat and water in a manner that is similar to making, not steeping, tea. Referred to as hot-water extraction, it is the only clinically-proven method for pulling out these polysaccharides from the fungi cell walls, therefore making them available for absorption and assimilation.

But unfortunately, most mushroom supplements, even those prescribed by health practitioners or found in health food stores, use an alcohol extraction process or rely on un-extracted mushrooms. Such methods have not been confirmed via scientific studies to carry the same effective benefits as those processed through hot-water extraction.

It is therefore very important to check with the manufacturer to confirm that extraction techniques use the hot-water extraction method before purchasing the supplement.