Thursday 14 July 2016

Mushroom Nutritional Value: Medical World's Oldest Known Cancer Fighting Ingredient

Mushrooms have been always valued as a folk medicine but in the last decade mushrooms have gained tremendous popularity due to its pharmaceutical potential. There are very few foods available in nature that can help in the treatment and management of different diseases and mushroom is one such magical food. It doesn’t just promote good health and overall wellbeing, but they also are very famous for their unique taste and subtle flavor. Recently mushrooms have emerged as a superfood due to the presence of antioxidants, anti-cancer, anti-diabetic, antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties in them.
Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus
Many researches have shown that mushrooms help to reduce plasma glucose levels, high cholesterol levels, as well as systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Since a very long time, medicinal mushrooms have been identified as a remarkable therapeutic agent. Medicinal mushrooms have various bioactive compounds which make them anti-diabetic agents. China, India, Japan, and Korea are some countries with a long history of use of mushrooms for the disease treatment. The polysaccharide (β-glucans) present in mushrooms helps to restore the functions of pancreatic tissue, thus causing an increase in the output of insulin. This further improves the sensitivity of insulin and helps to reduce the plasma glucose level. Therefore, mushroom can be made a part of the healthy diabetic diet as they contain fewer calories, little or no fat and cholesterol and they are loaded with lots of vitamins and minerals. In addition to this mushroom has no harmful toxicity effects on liver and kidney. Thus diabetics can consume mushroom safely without causing damage to their kidneys.
Altered Lipid Profile
Many studies have found that consumption of mushrooms lowers total cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein levels (LDL, Bad cholesterol). Thus, the presence of bioactive compounds in mushrooms has a positive effect on the lipid profile. As cholesterol, triglyceride and LDL levels are lowered, the risk of cardiovascular diseases is also reduced. The studies also observed a rise in total cholesterol and triglyceride levels soon after mushroom consumption was stopped or withdrawn. Restarting mushroom consumption again showed a decrease in the cholesterol and triglyceride levels. It clearly shows the impact of mushroom consumption on lipid profile. Therefore, people with altered lipid profile should make mushroom an important part of their daily diet.
Immunity
Many people consume different types of dietary supplements to boost their immune system. But recently some studies have found that consumption of mushrooms or mushroom extracts in the form of dietary supplements can strengthen the immune system and keep infections at bay. Mushrooms have stimulatory action on immune responsiveness, that is, it improves the immunity and helps it to react quickly against any harmful foreign substance that may be dangerous for the body. In other words mushroom plays a vital role in providing protection to the body.
Cancer
Chemotherapy and radiotherapy have various side-effects such as weight loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or loose motions and poor immunity. Research has found that mushrooms help to reduce these side-effects and help the cancer patients undergoing such treatment feel better. Some anti-cancer agents have also been identified in different types of mushrooms. A number of bioactive compounds present in mushrooms include ash, flavonoids, volatile oils, polysaccharides, protein, fat, alkaloids, phenolics, tocopherols, enzymes and organic acids. Lentinan, krestin, lectin, calcaelin and illudin S are some of the active compounds in mushrooms responsible for conferring anti-cancer properties. Further research has also shown that mushroom when coupled with anti-cancer drugs act as an effective tool in the treatment of cancer.

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