For Colds and Flu, the Best Defense
Written By: Jeanne Ringe
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Published - Jan 10, 2006
For Colds and Flu,the Best Defense Is Host Defense
SHELTER FROM THE STORM UNDER MUSHROOMS’ UMBRELLAS
On Location
Get ready. That tired, rundown feeling, slight fever, and the ever-so-slight tickle in the back of your throat foreshadow the coming “sick day season”— that time of year when offices, schools and public spaces are filled with people who should have taken the day off.
Remember the flu vaccine shortage last year? (2005)
U.S. government officials say they have enough to meet this year’s demand, but they’re also stockpiling the only
pharmaceutical drug known to combat avian flu: Some health officials are concerned that, as with the great flu pandemic of 1918, this year’s deadly avian flu will “jump the species” from birds to humans.
Protect yourself.
IMMUNE SUPPORT IS IMPORTANT during spring, summer and fall, and during cold and flu season it is essential. Bacteria and viral pathogens transmitted from person to person exploit our corporal defenses, mechanisms that are already working overtime to eliminate the toxins we inhale and ingest every day.
Four years ago, for a PBS program on environmental toxins and their effects on the body, host Bill Moyers asked a Mt. Sinai Medical School investigator to analyze his “body burden.” Eightyfour chemicals were found in his blood and urine. Only one of the chemicals, mercury, was present in the environment before Moyers was born. Most Americans have been exposed to the pthalates in fragrances, permethrin in bug sprays, benzene in gas fumes, solvents from paints, and dioxins from seafood. The health effects of chronic exposure to low levels of chemicals are not yet understood and scientists have never assessed the effects of exposures to the multiple combinations of chemicals in the environment today. But what we do know is that our twentieth-century bodies have not yet evolved to fully protect ourselves from the toxic burden that twenty-first-century living places on them. In fact, we also know these chemicals weaken our resistance to bacterial and viral pathogens.
COME TO MY WORLD
But there are some living creatures that constantly adapt to eliminate new toxic threats as theyencounter them, and
although these organisms are sometimes considered the lowest forms of life, mysterious, without innate intelligence,they are very, very good at defending themselves against microbial pathogens that threaten their survival—bacteria and viruses. Some of these organisms have been on the Earth for more than 90 million years. And according to their champion, a man who has devoted his life to them, they can save the world.
They are mushrooms. Medicinal fungi. Indeed, some, like maitake and enoki, are quite edible. Mushrooms are more magical than mundane not because a rare strain or two possess psychedelic qualities but because as a class these
diverse fungi are “like miniature pharmaceutical factories producing thousands of compounds,” says Paul Stamets,
one of the best-known mycologists in the world, who counts the Olympic Peninsula, with fungi-rich woods, as his
backyard living laboratory.
BIO OF THE LEGENDARY MUSHROOM HUNTER
Stamets, as much backwoods legend as he is scientist, has been a mycologist and mushroom enthusiast for more than 30 years. He has discovered four new species of mushrooms, and pioneered countless techniques in the field of edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation. Stamets serves on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms and Mushroom, and he is an advisor to the Program for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona.
Paul Stamets, company, Fungi Perfecti, sells Certified Organic materials to grow gourmet and medicinal mushrooms
for personal use or professional cultivation. In his new book, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World (Ten Speed Press, October 2005), Stamets shows how mushrooms can clean up the environment through mycoremediation (decomposing toxic wastes and pollutants), mycofiltration (cleaning up streams and agricultural watersheds), mycopesticides (controlling insect populations), and make forests and gardens healthier.
Stamets says it’s a matter of national security that we protect our old growth forests, where many species of mushrooms are found that could have the potential for protecting our health against a bioterrorist attack, and protect our environment for generations to come. One of the mushrooms Stamets discovered has already been shown to be effective against cowpox. Until very recently, most Americans had only experienced mushrooms in one of three ways:
As an artifact of a blissful childhood, during a walk in the woods, followed by a parental admonition:
“Don’t eat that, it might be poisonous!” As uniformly shaped rubbery spades on top of a pizza. As diced bits of
“mystery meat” in a commercial canned soup. Mushrooms, in other words, get no respect. Paul Stamets is on a mission to change all that. He says Americans are slowly evolving from mycophobes to mycophiles, and it’s about time.
“There’s more diversity in a shovel full of dirt than there are plants and mammals in North America. What this means is that the fungal genome and microbial universe has barely been explored. There are 120,000 plus species of
mushrooms that have not yet been identified,” he says.
MUSHROOMOGRAPHY
Mushrooms have a long and distinguished history as a botanical medicine. Humankind’s affinity for mushrooms dates back thousands of years. The recently discovered Ice Man, the 5,300-year-old preserved body found in the Alps in 1991, had tinder fungus (Fomes fomentarius) and birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus) with him when his body was
discovered. According to a recent story in Herbalgram, having these fungi “as components of his mobile
pharmacopoeia strongly suggests that these mushrooms provided medicine for Paleolithic Europeans….
Since autopsies of the Ice Man showed he was suffering from intestinal pathogens as well as an arrowhead imbedded
in his shoulder, his presumed use of these mushrooms appears well-warranted.” The first century De Materia Medica of Greek physician Dioscorides included the larch polypore as a treatment for consumption (tuberculosis). In Asia, some mushrooms, including cordyceps, were considered a “cultural treasure” and were so highly regarded that only the emperor was allowed to possess them. For hundreds of years, the Haida, natives of the Queen Charlotte Islands of British Columbia, have used fungi as part of their spiritual rituals, and mushrooms have been found in the graves of their shaman.
“The active constituents—polysaccharides—found in most mushrooms are beneficial to a wide range of immune-suppressing conditions,” says Stamets. But it is the mycelium, the delicate hyphae that connect fungi to one another, to the soil and to its hosts, that holds great medicinal and environmental promise. The extracellular metabolites in the mycelium “sweat,” and that is where the antiviral agents can be found. “The mushroom mycelium is only one cell wall thick,” he explains. “The membrane secretes enzymes that decompose large plant fibers. They also produce antibiotics to stave off infections.
Mushrooms resist rot. They develop strong defenses against parasites and viruses. That’s why they are great candidates for medical and environmental applications,” he says. During an immune response, white blood cells, including B cells, T cells, and natural killer (NK) cells, are activated. Each functions differently but they all work together to recognize, attack and destroy bacteria, viruses, abnormal cells and all substances seen as foreign invaders.
Consider this: Mushrooms are at the very bottom of the food chain, surviving on decay and rot of the forest. They
don’t need sunlight to grow. They protect themselves from excessive moisture and diseases. Their survival, for millions of years, has been guaranteed by a remarkably offensive and effective immune system.
“Mushrooms are immune modulators, which tend to bring the immune system back to a state of normalcy without causing over stimulation,” says Stamets. “How can they be both immune modulators and anti-inflammatories? It seems like an oxymoron, but the fact is that the language of science hasn’t yet caught up with what the capabilities are.”
A MUSHROOM MEDLEY BUILDS STRONGER IMMUNE RESPONSE
Most of the compounds found in mushrooms are classified as host defense potentiators (HDP). They “potentiate” the defense response. But their activity and unique features make them as different from each other as, well, humans! “Every mushroom species has a unique molecular architecture. Each type produces a specific set of metabolites capable of dealing with the set of microbes that coexist in that specific environment. By combining a host of medicinal mushroom species, the immune system receives multiple stimuli, which in turn awakens the body’s natural defenses. A multiplicity of mushrooms
activates far more receptor sites in the immune system,” says Stamets.
STAMETS AND NEW CHAPTER JOIN FORCES
New Chapter, with its over 200-acre certified organic ginger farm in Costa Rica, is blazing the way for innovations in natural health, always seeking the most unique and powerful ways of bringing nature to consumers. So it is no surprise that New Chapter’s Host Defense® formula is one of the MycoMedicinal formulas Stamets developed for immune support and modulation. It comprises 16 different mushroom species, including mushrooms that have a long history of medicinal use and good science behind them. All species are supplied by Stamets. “Host Defense enhances generalized immunity through direct antimicrobial activity, modulates the immune system, and increases antioxidant ability to stave off or ameliorate free-radical damage from toxic agents,” says Stamets.
Host Defense, which is all organic, includes:
Maitake—antiviral, antidiabetic and antitumor properties; this fleshy, soft polypore may protect its host trees from aggressive parasitic fungi Brazilian Blazei—contains beta 1,3 glucans and beta 1,6 glucans currently being studied for immunopotentiation; it exudes a yellowish metabolite in the mycelium stage that can kill bacteria Chaga—stimulates NK and T cell production; antiviral against some influenza Reishi—a directly active antimicrobial, it stimulates production of macrophages, activating NK and T cells; over 119 triterpenoids have been isolated from this species, many with mmunomodulatory properties Trametes versicolor—antitumor and stimulates a host-mediated immune response, boosting NK cells; strong antibiotic, effective against E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans, Listeria monocytogenes, and other pathogenic microbes The formula also includes Mesima, Yun Zhi, Zhu Ling, Lion’s Mane, Agarikon, Shiitake, and the Ice Man Fungus.
- Be sure the mushroom supplier is certified organic. Mushrooms collected or grown near cities or polluted environments will concentrate heavy metals. New Chapter’s formulas with Stamets are not only organic but carry a certified potency.
- Batch-to-batch consistency and microbiological testing is also important.
- Ask for certified P value. This means the mushroom mycelium is genetically identical with the rainforest mushroom it was derived from, carrying all its genetic energy and healing force.
- New Chapter’s Host Defense formula is organic, consistent batch to batch, tests for microbes, and is the
only mushroom formula that certifies the P value of its ingredients.
"Umbrellas", can protect and defend us against a number of pathogens.