Science & Technology Fungi’s future, present, and past is more than a trend

By Alexandra Hall Science & Tech Editor

There’s an underground renaissance in wellness culture. Whether it’s advertisements like those of MUD/WTR offering coffee replacements or your hippie cousin swearing by a capsule to aid your memory problems, mushrooms are the stars of the alternative health world at the moment.

There are many reasons people venture into alternative medicine. Some people don’t trust public health institutions or they just want to jump on the next trend. However, some individuals are deeply invested in the study of mushrooms and how they can improve our lives.

Take Paul Stamets: an important figure in fungi discourse and advocacy for its medicinal prospects, Stamets is the people’s mycologist. His company Host Defense Mushrooms works to pro- vide mushroom supplements alongside a blog, recipe books, and other articles that strive to educate customers. After receiving his bachelor’s degree, he worked as a logger. He has an honorary doctorate from the National University of Natural Medicine in Portland and in 2014, received an Invention Ambassador award from the American Association of Science.

Stamet’s book “Mycelium

Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World” poses mushrooms as the potential solution to many health and environmental concerns.

“The cascade of toxins and debris generated by humans destabilizes nutrient return cycles, causing crop failure, global warming, climate change and, in a worst-case scenario, quickening the pace towards ecocatastrophes of our own making,” Stamets writes in the book. “I believe we can come into balance with nature using mycelium to regulate the flow of nutrients.

The age of mycological medicine is upon us. Now is the time to ensure the future of our planet and our species by partnering, or running, with mycelium.”

Market research completed by business research company IMARC reported that the global mushroom market size reached $63 billion in 2022. The research predicts the market will reach $90.4 billion by 2028.

Sophomore Emma Turner takes Stamet’s MyCommunity Capsules, a blend formulated to support the immune system.

“I heard about mushroom supplements through my naturopath,” Turner said. “She recommended them because I have a weakened immune system and I get sick often. They definitely help with supporting my immunity because

New Alzheimer’s drug promises to slow cognitive decline

By Thomas McKenna Assistant editor

The efficacy of a new Alzheimer’s drug is under scrutiny after it was granted accelerated approval by the Food and Drug Administration this month.

Leqembi, a treatment developed by Japanese biotech company Eisai and American biotech Biogen, has demonstrated more success in trial studies than any Alzheimer’s drug before. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine— co-authored by researchers from Eisai— found the drug slowed cognitive decline in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients by 27%.

“We have a small win, a modest win, but it’s a win still,” said Marwan Sabbagh of the Barrow Neurological Institute, a paid consultant of Biogen, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Kelli Kazmier, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Hillsdale, said she isn’t convinced the drug is the game changer companies claim.

“Preliminary evidence suggests that there are small but significant changes in disease progression,” Kazmier said. “However, these are smaller than the burden that is typically associated with what you would need to meet to call an effective drug.”

According to Kazmier, an important differentiation is “statistical significance” and “therapeutic significance.”

Statistical significance states how certain researchers are of a trend, whereas therapeutic significance states whether or not a treatment accomplished a certain goal. On a 18-point scale testing cognitive ability, researchers set a .5 point difference between the treatment group and the placebo group as the measure of success. The study found a .4 point difference, which fell short of their standard for therapeutic significance.

This explains why Biogen said the results showed a “highly statistically significant reduction of clinical decline.” The company didn’t say the drug has a significant effect on cognitive function – they say their certainty in its effect, however small, is significant. associated with the proteins that this drug would alleviate,” Kazmier said. “But the vast majority of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline would not be affected by breaking up these plaques because it is not addressing the root cause of the issue.”

The same study also signaled the drug carries risk of bleeding and swelling in the brain. About 17 percent of patients receiving Leqembi experienced brain bleeding, versus only 9 percent taking a placebo. About 12 percent of Leqembi patients experienced brain bleeding, compared with about 2 percent in the placebo group.

These numbers are an improvement over side effect risks of Aduhelm, Biogen’s previous drug approved by the FDA in June 2021. Forty-one percent of patients in Aduhelm trials experienced brain bleeding or swelling.

Even if Leqembi does prove to be marginally effective, it could be doomed to unprofitability if Medicare refuses to cover its cost. Experts say the drug would be cost-prohibitive to Medicare beneficiaries if they were forced to pay out of pocket.

“Without Medicare coverage, this drug is pretty much unaffordable. Even with Medicare coverage, beneficiaries would still be responsible for 20% coinsurance, and that’s not a trivial amount,” said Tricia Neuman, executive director of the Kaiser Family Foundation, according to CNBC.

Such was the fate of Biogen’s drug that flopped last year: Aduhelm. The FDA approved the treatment, but Medicare refused to cover it. One reason: Aduhelm, priced at $72,000, would have increased the cost of Medicare by $29 billion in its first year of coverage, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report.

Whyte said this refusal by Medicare to cover Aduhelm made it inaccessible for most American seniors.

Liz Essley Whyte, FDA reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Hillsdale alumna, told the Collegian the drug uses the same technique as many previous treatments.

“They all have the same kind of mechanism of action,” Whyte said. “Meaning they’re all trying to attack amyloid plaque in the brain to fight Alzheimer’s.”

Almost all of Alzheimer’s research and drug development over the past two decades has been focused on attacking plaques and tangles in the brain that many believe are the root cause of cognitive decline. But Kazmier said she believes these efforts may be mistaking an indicator for a cause.

“My take on these drugs is that there might be some small neurotoxic effect

I feel like when I take them, I can fight off sicknesses better.”

Although mushrooms are seeing an uptick in popularity, they are far from a new source of interest. According to Stamets’ and Heather Zwickey’s journal article “Medicinal Mushrooms: Ancient Remedies Meet Modern Science” which was published in the there’s nothing new about the health benefits of mushrooms.

Greek physician Hippocrates classified the amadou mushroom (Fomes fomentarius) as an anti-inflammatory agent.

Ancient Chinese medicine has cited ling zhi (Ganoderma lucidum) as an immune booster and a promoter of cardiovascular health, among other body systems.

“The surge in interest is not only related to the deep cultural history of their use, but it is also due to modern methods for tissue culture of mycelium and new methods for testing the activity of individual constituents and their synergies,” the journal article states.

National Library of Medicine,

Even though fungi’s history runs deep, consumers’ knowledge may not. With the rise in companies trying to capitalize off of the mushroom market, some risks emerge in the form of actual efficacy. Much like any other supplement, consumers should be aware of certain fillers that are put in their products and should note the actual amount of mushrooms they are actually ingesting.

“There’s a general trend of people trying to find beneficial things to put in their body,” Associate Professor of Biology Christopher Heckel said. “Being well-informed and doing our homework on the substances we are consuming is important.”

With their rise in popularity in mainstream culture, new research alongside anecdotal experience looms on the horizon. The days of thinking about mushrooms as a niche foraging interest or an acquired culinary taste are long behind us. Really, they never were just that. Mycology may be a trend in business, but it offers a historically significant and promising approach to health.