Medicinal Mushrooms: The Activity of a Single Mushroom Species vs. Multi-Species Blends There are several aspects to this issue. Some people advocate only using single species suggesting that the activities of different species may be antagonistic and somehow cancel each other out. There is much we still don't know about the medicinal activities of mushrooms and this might be true in some cases. An example would be pro-inflammatory effects versus anti-inflammatory effects. Modulation of the immune system does involve pro-inflammatory responses since inflammation (via the rush of macrophages/white blood cells) is our body’s first defense against an infection. Inflammation, if unchecked and/or chronic, can be a big problem. However, mushrooms contain a matrix of compounds including compounds such as triterpenes that are anti-inflammatory and function to temper the immune system's response to infections but not to the extent of preventing macrophages from doing their job. We have seen much better responses to blends of mushrooms than to single species, particularly in regards to immune system stimulation and modulation. Although most medicinal mushroom research focus on the activities of single mushroom species rather than blends, some studies have shown that a combination of medicinal mushrooms results in a stronger immune response than any one mushroom taken alone. Stamets (2003) compared NK cell activity from human spleen cells in response to medicinal mushrooms and found that a blend of mycelium from 7 different species caused a greater increase in NK activity than any individual species taken alone when compared to the control treatment (saline). The reason for this appears to be the fact that beta glucans from fungi stimulate the immune system by binding to specific receptors on the membranes of phagocytic cells and natural killer (NK) cells. These beta glucans very closely resemble the molecules of the cell walls of bacteria and viruses. Thus, in effect, the beta glucans make the white blood and NK cells "believe" that they have encountered a bacterial or viral invader and they attack. The various species of medicinal mushrooms all have slightly different 1,3 beta-glucan side-branching structures which stimulate different cell-mediated host responses from the immune system. Thus, the greater variation of 1,3 beta glucan stereo-chemistry that is present in a blend of several species of mushrooms should stimulate a more broadbased response. In mycologist Paul Stamets’ words, “synergistic combinations of mushroom species appear to activate collective subfield of receptor sites, eliciting a wide range of positive responses that result in improved immunological health” (Stamets 2003). The structural diversity and variability of the bioactive compounds in medicinal mushrooms is astounding and is thought to be directly related to the potent ability of mushrooms to modulate so many types of immune cells and immune responses. In particular, polysaccharides such as the beta glucans in medicinal mushrooms have a greater potential for structural diversity than other types of bioactive compounds due to their repetitive sugar monomer (monosaccharide) structures joined together by glycosidic bonds. For example, the number of possible permutations from four different monosaccharides is 35,560 unique tetrasaccharides as compared to four amino acids which can form only 24 different permutations (Ooi and Lui, 2000). Thus, while the polysaccharides in any given species of medicinal mushroom can contain incredible amounts of biological information, combining several species into a synergistic blend can facilitate an even wider range of positive immune responses. In addition to the polysaccharide compounds in mushrooms that stimulate our immune system to attack invaders, mushroom mycelia also produce a multitude of natural antimicrobial substances that they secrete to protect themselves from the hordes of bacteria, viruses and other micro-organisms in the highly competitive environments that they inhabit. Scientists estimate that humans share approximately 30% of our DNA with the fungal kingdom (versus 10% with the plant kingdom). As a result, many of the same viruses and bacteria that attack mushrooms also attack humans. Blends of several mushrooms contain a wider variety of these natural antibiotic substances than would be found in any single species. Due in part to overuse of pharmaceutical antibiotics, we are facing more and more infectious diseases that have been resistant to standard antibiotics. Infectious disease organisms, in particular viruses, are constantly and rapidly mutating. Medical science is struggling to find new and effective treatments for infectious
diseases and also for potential bioengineered bioterrorism threats. The fungal kingdom, which contains an estimated 1.5 million species of which only 10% have been identified, is perhaps the most promising resource for new biopharmaceutical drugs. In 2004, Project BioShield, was enacted by President Bush to speed the development of drugs and vaccines to counter the effects of biological, chemical, nuclear and radiological agents. In this program, researchers tested 200,000 natural and pharmaceutical agents for activity against smallpox, a deadly virus that could be used as a biological weapon. The researchers found extracts from several species of medicinal mushrooms to be powerful and highly active antipox agents (Stamets, 2005). Interestingly, the researchers were not able to identify any one single compound in the fungal extracts that was responsible for the anti-viral effects. This observation led them to conclude that the effects must be dependent upon synergistic interactions of dozens if not hundreds of compounds present in the whole mushroom extracts. Thus, the “whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. Blends of several medicinal mushrooms would presumably add more “parts” to the equation to make an even greater “whole”. - SF References: Ooi V., and Liu, F. 2000. Immunomodulation and anti-cancer activity of polysaccharide-protein complexes. Current Medicinal Chemistry, 7, 715-729. Stamets, P. 2003. "Potentiation of Cell-Mediated Host Defense Using Fruitbodies and Mycelia of Medicinal Mushrooms". International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms; 5:179-191. Stamets, P. 2005. “Antipox properties of Fomitopsis offivinals (Vill: Fr.) Bond, et Singer (Agarikon) from the Pacific Northwest of North America” Int Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms 7(3):495-5-6.