Using Mushrooms to Support Your Health

Mushrooms: some are good, some are poisonous, and some are psychedelic. You most likely think of the 60s and Carlos Casteneda when hearing about psychedelic mushrooms. Or, perhaps you know someone who tried gathering their own mushrooms in the wild only to end up in the hospital from eating a toxic species.

However, some mushrooms are good for eating. And, some mushrooms have medicinal qualities and a lengthy history of medicinal use in Chinese, Japanese, and Eastern European traditions. Our conventional western medicine is slowly embracing the health benefits of mushrooms.

Mushrooms support immune function, and they accomplish this by normalizing to your immune system rather than being a stimulant. They help in a wide variety of circumstances such as:

• Lowered resistance and “catching things” easily
• Chronic or persistent infections
• Certain autoimmune disorders

Mushrooms contain compounds that resemble a microbe that affects immune function. Your immune cells respond to this by increasing your innate immune activity, which is your front-line defense system. Your system goes on alert and into practice, which strengthens your system over time. Many species of mushrooms provide this benefit including common mushrooms found in your grocery store like Oyster and Shiitake mushrooms.

In addition to providing benefits to your immune system, mushrooms support other areas of your body as well such as the liver, nervous system, cardiovascular system, and others. Let’s take a deeper look at some mushroom species used frequently for their health benefits.