Mycology - Medicinal Mycology

Medicinal Mycology

For centuries, certain mushrooms have been documented as a folk medicine in China, Japan, and Russia. Although the use of mushrooms in folk medicine is largely centered on the Asian continent, people in other parts of the world like the Middle East, Poland and Belarus have been documented using mushrooms for medicinal purposes. Certain mushrooms, especially polypores like Reishi were thought to be able to benefit a wide variety of health ailments. Medicinal mushroom research in the United States is currently active, with studies taking place at City of Hope National Medical Center, as well as the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center.

Current research focuses on mushrooms that may have hypoglycemic activity, anti-cancer activity, anti-pathogenic activity, and immune system enhancing activity. Recent research has found that the oyster mushroom naturally contains the cholesterol-lowering drug lovastatin, mushrooms produce large amounts of vitamin D when exposed to UV light, and that certain fungi may be a future source of taxol. To date, penicillin, lovastatin, ciclosporin, griseofulvin, cephalosporin, ergometrine, and statins are the most famous pharmaceuticals which have been isolated from the fungi kingdom.