Shiitake Mushroom

Lenitula Edodes

This tasty mushroom is the most cultivated exotic mushroom in the world. For thousands of years it has been a favorite food as well as a top choice as a source of potent medicinal compounds. Many vegetarians throughout the world use Shiitake in place of meat, as it lends heartiness and complex flavors to many dishes.

High levels of toxic heavy metals are often found in the commercial cultivated shiitake mushrooms. Now, with our Shiitake Mycelia Biomass product, this concern can be dropped. As with all the Mushroom Mycelia products we distribute, only the best organic methods are utilized. These Shiitakes are grown in an organic, sterilized substrate there are undetectable levels of heavy metals, or pesticides.

The compounds as well as the pharmacological effects of Shiitake mushrooms are too numerous to mention here, but one of the most renowned is Lentinan a polysaccharide. Lentinan is recognized in several countries as an important immuno-stimulant, and is approved in Japan for treating gastric cancer. Lentinan is a highly purified, high molecular weight polysaccharide in a triple helix structure, containing only glucose molecules with mostly beta 1,3 glucan linkages. This is thought to give Shiitake some of it's immune modulating properties.

Other fractions of Shiitake also have antiviral, antibacterial, and immunopotentiating activities. The interesting functions of some compounds found in Shiitake is that they do not attack cancer cells directly, but rather produce an anti-tumor effect by activating a variety of immune responses in the person consuming the mushroom. An interesting point to note is that this function is produced in not only immune-compromised individuals, but healthy ones as well.

In Japan Shiitake is considered to prolong survival and improve quality of life when gastric cancer patients with unresectable or recurrent diseases are being treated in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents. The incidence of carcinomas in mice treated with a carcinogen was reduced 50% when the mice were fed a diet containing Shiitake mushrooms.

More recently, it has been shown that extracts from Shiitake can inhibit dental caries and plaque formation.

Yet another active compound isolated from Shiitake, eritadenine, has been shown to lower blood levels of cholesterol and lipids. When this was added to the diet of rats, eritadenine (0.005%) caused a 25% decrease in total cholesterol in as little as 1 week !



Close