Mushrooms… Immune System Magic?

By April 4, 2020Nutrition

A while back I took a weekend course in growing exotic mushrooms to add to my veggie growing skills. At that time I looked into Reishi mushrooms as medicinal food supplements for a host of diseases and took note of their immune boosting and anti-viral properties. I find it interesting that I’m hearing about them again now in the context of Covid-19 and how the Reishi mushroom is playing an important role in traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of Covid-19.

In traditional Chinese medicine, Reishi is known as an immune modulator, helping to bring the immune system back into a state of balance. This action is attributed to polysaccharides, the immune modulating actives that work to either stimulate or suppress the immune response as needed. The fruiting body and spores contains sugars, polysaccharides, triterpenes, steroids, amino acids, protein, coumarin, glycosides, nucleosides, alkaloids, volatile oils, resins, lipids and minerals. The polysaccharides are proving to be one of the most important active medicinal components in the mushrooms.

Reishi mushroom supplements, maybe another option if you can’t get your hands on Vitamin C or you just want to boost your immune system during this time or the regular flu season?….although with Corona around I don’t think we’re going to see a “regular” flu season again for a while.

It just makes sense to me to eat a more diverse diet, rich in natural medicines so you don’t need to take the artificial kind. Eat more foods that have medicinal value like exotic mushrooms and improve your health naturally.

I’ve just managed to get 15 bottles delivered to the clinic from my friends at Mushroom Guru while I could and very glad I was able to due to the increased demand. Since the Reishi information started circulating they’ve been inundated with orders and like so many other suppliers will probably be running low on stock soon.

Stay healthy

Dr Peter Solomon

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