Mushrooms and the World's Problems

Mushrooms really are incredible -- for an organism is so simple, it has a lot of potential to help the human body, and the health of our planet. It is not only the fancy mushrooms with Japanese names that are interesting researchers -- the button mushrooms, which are cheap and plentiful in our supermarkets, give scientists plenty of reason to sing their praises also! If you have a mushroom growing kit at home, or enjoy dried porcini mushrooms or shiitake mushrooms, find out how you’re helping your body and your world here.

Button mushroom genome sequencing could solve global warming and improve soils

This research is being headed by the University of Warwick, and the team has high hopes for it. The efforts come from the fact that these mushrooms are extremely efficient at decomposing what is around them (so your spent mushroom growing kit is definitely not rubbish!). They break down lignin (part of the biofuel formation process), help cycle carbon through decomposing plant matter, and can hyper-accumulate toxic metals, cleaning out the soil.

Reishi mushrooms fight sarcoma

This research is at present only in the mouse stage -- human trials have not begun. However extracts of reishi (especially when fused with extracts of green tea) seemed to create a massive slowing of the growth of sarcomas in mice. All mice still eventually died of their cancers, but those that received a commercial reishi mushroom extract as well as a green tea extract showed much slower progression. The anti-cancer effect has been attributed to other mushrooms like shiitake mushrooms and dried porcini mushrooms also.

Reishi mushrooms fight obesity, heart disease, diabetes

They have been used for centuries as health promoters, and now scientists are uncovering the reasons behind that. Researchers are targeting people with Syndrome X in reishi mushroom powder trials.

Shiitake mushrooms hold key to biofuels

The ability of the shiitake mushroom to turned fallen wood into sugars to feed itself is amazing -- and may help scientists develop more efficient biofuels from a wider range of sources. Californian scientists believe the gene responsible is Xyn11A, and carries the instructions for the mushroom to make xylanase, an enzyme. This enzyme could be used to digest rice hulls and other food leftovers to make biofuels.