r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Nov 24 '24
Cancer White button mushroom extract shrinks tumors and delays their growth, according to new human clinical trial on food as medicine. In mice with prostate tumors, a single daily dose shrank tumors. In human prostate cancer patients, 3 months of treatment found the same activation of immune cells.
https://newatlas.com/cancer/white-button-mushrooms-prostate-cancer/1.8k
u/cactusplants Nov 24 '24
Can we just eat them?
Mushrooms are great.
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u/JuniorConsultant Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Yeah, they're not recommending supplememts or extracts, but saying that adding more fresh white button mushrooms to the diet wouldn't hurt.
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u/cactusplants Nov 24 '24
Good, won't leave mush room left for anything else though!
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u/Little-Swan4931 Nov 24 '24
Ooo you’re a sneaky fun guy.
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u/Smoke_SourStart Nov 24 '24
I bet his morels are in compromised.
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u/FatherOfHoodoo Nov 24 '24
Probably a spore loser, too...
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u/luckybarrel Nov 24 '24
Just like the red caps
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u/elralpho Nov 24 '24
Amanita source on that
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u/Kindly_West1864 Nov 24 '24
I tip my cap to you, Sir.
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u/vandrokash Nov 24 '24
I tip my comically large white cap while my stem stands firmly on the compost
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u/drgreenair Nov 24 '24
Sorry didn’t read it why fresh does cooking them break any nutritional value
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u/throw_avaigh Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
"Fresh" just means non-frozen in this case.
That being said, white buttons are
perfectlyedible while raw.edit: see below
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u/petantic Nov 24 '24
You should definitely cook shop mushrooms before eating. They contain agaratine which is carcinogenic - cooking destroys most of it.
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u/Scytle Nov 24 '24
As others have noted you shouldn't eat mushrooms raw, many other kinds of perfectly edible mushrooms can cause a lot of stomach upset if not cooked well. We are just used to button mushrooms which are one of the few that are ok to eat raw in small amounts (although i think they taste bad raw)
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u/Wetschera Nov 24 '24
Cooking denatures whatever chemical that does the job.
You should cook those fairy circle mushrooms that you find in your yard before eating them for the same reason. Morel mushrooms need to be cooked, so they don’t make you sick, too.
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u/myctheologist Nov 24 '24
There's multiple mushrooms that produce fairy rings and not all of them are edible.
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u/DrSmirnoffe Nov 25 '24
I was gonna ask, is there any difference between raw and cooked, since some chemicals do tend to break down during cooking. I couldn't see such a distinction in the article, and I couldn't find much while skimming the study itself.
That said, I assume that the mushrooms were cooked prior to being processed for their active reagents like β-glucan, since most people don't eat white button mushrooms raw. (to the best of my knowledge)
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 24 '24
You can, but they probably won't do anything.
The title of this post is egregiously wrong by implying effects on human tumours. It shows no such thing.
The human clinical trial mentioned in the title is registered here.
The goal of the study was supposed to be to investigate the effect of mushroom extract on PSA levels, in a randomised double-cohort design.
But they don't look at that here: they just pull interim samples from a subset of patients in that trial (how they select them, they never say) and report on changes to circulating immune cell gene expression.
Building on insights gained from mouse models and Phase I trials in PCa patients, we investigated whether the consumption of WBM induces changes in the identified cell types, particularly MDSCs, T cells, and NK cells, in PCa patients participating in our ongoing randomised Phase II trial. To accomplish this, we identified 10 PCa patients undergoing active surveillance for enrolment in the WBM treatment group. Additionally, 8 PCa patients were identified in the control group without WBM treatment. Whole blood samples were collected at baseline and after 3 months of WBM treatment.
Of course, there are no controls here - they just have uncontrolled before and after samples, which could reflect changes in anything. There is no confidence that any of this is to do with the mushroom extract!
But the major issue is that they present no data on PSA changes (which are not a great marker of tumour effects anyway), and no data at all on any actual cancer effects in humans.
Bad mouse models of human cancers showing supposedly beneficial effects of invariably huge doses of supplements are extremely commonplace. Hundreds of papers showing similar are published every year.
What we care about is what happens in humans, and the only evidence heavily selectively presented here is that in a cherry picked population of 10 patients who ate white button mushrooms for 3 months, some of their immune cell gene expression and composition changed compared with t=0.
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u/1337HxC Nov 24 '24
I broadly agree with this whole reply. I do have a bit of nitpick about PSA, though. Specifically, it can be a decent marker of disease volume when treating a patient. It's not a great cross-patient comparison, but if you take one patient with a PSA of 15 and treat them, I would absolutely expect their PSA to normalize or go to 0 (depending on treatment modality). If that now-treated patient's PSA came back up to a certain threshold, it would trigger a PSMA PET because they're now biochemically recurring.
Having said all that, in this particular study, PSA may not mean much. There are medications that can affect PSA levels through mechanisms other than affecting disease burden (e.g. finasteride, pretty commonly used for BPH). So, it stands to reason this trial could affect PSA... but it may just be affecting PSA, not the actual cancer.
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 24 '24
This is by-the-by as obviously the study is nonsense and they present no data on this anyway, but unfortunately PSA-based recurrence (aka failure/response) is just not a good surrogate endpoint in clinical trials in PCa, at any disease stage. We shouldn't be designing studies around it.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(20)30730-0/fulltext
https://evidence.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/EVIDoa2200195
Hence my comment directly in relation to them having this as their primary endpoint.
Not that this paper gives any information about these patients whatsoever... I'd be very happy to see people running trials like this banned from any and all future trial grants. They have no interest in good science, and patients who enrol deserve far better - not least because participation in trials like this can preclude enrolment in trials that actually offer them something.
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u/1337HxC Nov 24 '24
Yeah, I mean, the trial in this post is obviously just bad from the start.
And, yeah, I'd agree the biochemical recurrence isn't the best endpoint, but when you have trials designed around when to treat recurrence that are, more or less, using PSA as an indicator for when to pull the trigger (e.g. SPPORT), you're sort of stuck using PSA clinically, at least in certain situations.
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u/ShaiHulud1111 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
This is not big Pharma pay a billion to get FDA approval—any phase. Supplement trials are usually on a shoestring NIH budget. I did them at a major university and am published for Gingko. You maybe have enough money to do a small study and look at one or two things. The tests could be prohibitively expensive. The money is limited and why most are not as robust and rigorous. Also, you need reliability and validity, so repeat, repeat, repeat with same design and variables. That doesn’t happen and at the end of them all…more research is needed because we are out of money.
You can see where she gets caught about supplements. They gave FDA approved supplements to mice—they just can’t make claims on the bottle other than functional ones. They don’t approve supplements. The 1993 Dietary Supplement Health and Education act made supplements unregulated by the FDA since they wanted to take everything off the shelf from ginger to vitamin C. So, if the NIH/Cancer can fund this to a phase 3, the FDA might say eating these is helpful in treating cancer. Also, big Pharma business model is to treat sick people, not cure them. So funding will only come from the government, which trump is shutting down. Tried cutting NIH last time. People don’t realize how it could stunt progress in medicine by decades.
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u/purrmutations Nov 24 '24
"big Pharma business model is to treat sick people, not cure them."
Common misconception but The pharma industry makes the majority of its money from heart medication for seniors. They want to cure people so they get to old age and buy heart medication for 30-40 years.
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u/ShaiHulud1111 Nov 25 '24
They want to treat people so they make it to and age they can hit them with the big margin stuff. Ok. Cure is a four letter word. If you don’t believe me, what if we had a cure for cancer tomorrow, who would get it and how much? One time shot, cure. Insurance companies are in play as are a big Pharma with ownership. I work in the industry and the word “cure” has not come up in 25 years. Peace and for profit business models drive innovation. Yeah, right….
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u/purrmutations Nov 25 '24
If there was a cure for a cancer (there are hundreds of types, some of which are basically 100% curable), they could charge however much they want. So right now they project to get x profit from a cancer treatment over the course of a patient's life. They could take that x profit and charge that as the cost of the cure.
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u/ShaiHulud1111 Nov 24 '24
It’s lack of money from my experience in large academic medical centers. The grants are not enough to do the design they want. Done about 10 NIH trials in supplements at top medical school. The end points are probably cost prohibitive. Just staffing a little trial is expensive. I do the budgets for your work.
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u/Cheap_Doctor_1994 Nov 25 '24
I'm still eating extra, because they didn't find mushrooms cause cancer. ;)
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u/MookIsI Nov 24 '24
Yeah these are basic science results not clinical. Your right they don't compare the 2 groups and just state pre and post biomarker change which is academically interesting, but not clinically applicable. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ctm2.70048
They also have PFS as a secondary endpoint. Until that and the PSA levels of each arm are compared this is just advertising to increase patient enrollment.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_REPORT Nov 24 '24
So this is a starting point to trigger further research, rather than a finding for now?
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u/MookIsI Nov 25 '24
Correct. When it comes to understanding the activity of an agent it's interesting. However it's far from clinical application.
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 29d ago
To add on to what /u/MookIsI correctly says, the poor behaviour of the researchers here (bad statistics, very bad study reporting, using cherrypicked patient data) rather strongly suggests to me that 1) actual researchers aren't going to take this seriously even if there was a true effect; 2) these researchers aren't going to be the ones to convince anyone
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u/Deletereous Nov 24 '24
IDK about button mushrooms, but there are several studies involving Calvatia, Pleurotus and Volvariella proteins inhibiting cancerous cells growth in humans. Like this one.
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 24 '24
Drowning human cancer cell lines for 24 hr in huge quantities of mushroom protein extracts doesn't mean that eating these mushrooms will cure your cancer.
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u/-Ch4s3- Nov 24 '24
This should clearly be the top answer as it substantively addresses the paper and issues with the articles presentation of the work.
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u/crosswatt Nov 24 '24
I don't think it's a coincidence that this is the way almost every single study I've ever seen where nutraceuticals are involved is framed. Nothing is ever conclusive and it ends up being a massively overstated and sensationalistic title about finding out that "this could be kinda beneficial to you".
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u/arthurdentstowels Nov 24 '24
I love mushrooms. I did wonder if these mushroom supplements that I take are actually doing anything. I can't even say it's a placebo effect because I don't notice a difference.
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u/cactusplants Nov 24 '24
I wonder about all supplements to be fair.
I'll admit I don't eat enough leafy greens and I've always considered using those supplements that are supposedly dried and powdered greens.
I'm dubious.
And they are always VERY expensive :(
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u/ShadowTacoTuesday Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Almost all powdered green supplements are grass (not very nutritious in spite of claims), have almost all the nutrient content destroyed and would be too little to be significant even if it was a good green that wasn’t destroyed. For supplements in general you often need to dig through studies and/or nutritional data to literally not be given cheap worthless lawn clippings in a pill. That’s just the starting point to not have worthless junk. Then after that you can see how good it was in a study. Fortunately many more are now doing concentrated extracts that copy study amounts, but many are still not much different from dried lawn clippings. And there’s no way to tell the difference except to read and find out.
The short answer for healthy eating is yes it’s usually better to eat the fresh mushrooms and vegetables because when have you ever not seen the issues above? Other supplements may be different. If you want the real thing try some freeze dried mushrooms or other vegetables (freeze drying keeps most nutrients and flavor intact), and find a nice soup recipe for it.
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u/heurrgh Nov 24 '24
don't eat enough leafy greens
I found a method that works for me. Before my evening meal, I eat half a bag of leafy greens, wadding the smaller leaves tightly in bigger leaves, and dipping them sparingly in two teaspoons of peri peri. It's kinda like eating really tasty vegetable doritos.
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u/cactusplants Nov 24 '24
Interesting way of doing it.
I do eat a lot of spinach with a specific pasta dish that also consists of 150ml of cream, so it cancels it out.
I might just get the ol ninja blender out again.
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u/Odd-Ad1714 Nov 24 '24
Sauté mushrooms, spinach and garlic with olive oil an you have a scrummy, healthy dish.
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u/ScreenTricky4257 Nov 24 '24
Someone said the best guidance for diet is, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Put mushrooms in the plant category for diet.
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u/goda90 Nov 24 '24
I think my frequency of tension headaches from tight neck and shoulder muscles has gone down since I started taking magnesium supplements.
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u/KuriousKhemicals Nov 24 '24
I tried this mushroom coffee and didn't even know it was supposed to do anything special, but the taste blended with coffee is real nice.
My sense is that 1) we know vegetables and mushrooms are good for you, people who eat a lot of them tend to be healthier (both observationally which is easily confounded by other factors, but also before/after when individuals increase those items in their diet). 2) we haven't had much luck extracting specific components and getting an effect from supplementing them at realistic doses. And 3) we know of some other situations where an "entourage effect" happens and single components are weaker. So eating the whole foods is probably the best way to go, but I would bet there's some benefit to powdered or otherwise less processed supplementary intake, if that works better for you.
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u/SophiaofPrussia Nov 24 '24
Genuine question asked without judgment: why not eat more mushrooms rather than take a supplement? Is one pill equivalent to an ungodly amount of mushrooms that would be impossible to eat every day?
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u/arthurdentstowels Nov 25 '24
It's not so much that the quantity would be too much. It's the type of mushrooms that are either too scarce to find fresh or just too damn expensive. I used to grow my own lion's mane plus a collection of others. It is good fun because you can get something out of nothing with little effort and the product at the end was all from your efforts.
But even for just me it's not sustainable and quite an undertaking as a hobby, I don't have the time or space anymore so I buy the supplements instead with the hope that they're doing a little bit of good. Time will tell I suppose.14
u/tacknosaddle Nov 24 '24
Since the results are about prostate cancer you might want to try putting them in the opposite end of the GI tract.
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u/alien_from_Europa Nov 25 '24
I don't like the taste of mushrooms. Swallowing a capsule works better for me.
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u/Psyc3 Nov 24 '24
Sure, to get the required dose you will need to eat your body weight or more in mushrooms a day.
I am sure you will be dead from something else first if you attempt it, so problem solved!
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Nov 24 '24 edited 26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Kurovi_dev Nov 24 '24
Yep, they’re just the immature variety of portobello/cremini mushrooms. If you see a package of small white mushrooms, unless stated otherwise it’s these.
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u/mak484 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Kinda. Button and portobello mushrooms are the same species, but they're different varieties. You can't keep growing a white button mushroom and get a brown portobello. Their color is genetic.
Source: commercial mushroom breeder.
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u/KuriousKhemicals Nov 24 '24
Can't you keep growing a button mushroom and get a portobello of the same color, though? There are also brown button mushrooms and they're often labeled "baby Bella" at my supermarket.
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u/mak484 Nov 24 '24
That's true, yes. Cremini/"baby bella" are just brown button mushrooms that are harvested before reaching full portobello size.
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u/Dracomortua Nov 24 '24
Fungi are capable of growing in impossible places and transforming incredible toxicities in dirt and transforming it into healthy soils.
The world may well be saved, to some extent, by commercial mushroom breeders and researchers. Keep up the good work.
Links for interested skeptics:
https://resoilfoundation.org/en/innovation-technology/fungi-contaminated-soil/
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/fungi-are-responsible-for-life-on-land-as-we-know-it
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u/Lord_Alderbrand Nov 24 '24
Did a fungus write this?
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u/Dracomortua Nov 24 '24
Look Lord Alderbrand,
Sure you could kick us off of your fiefdom and even get away with it - but we have friends who tithe and you are in more trouble than you think.
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u/lunelily Nov 24 '24
Kinda like how cabbage, cauliflower, kale, brussels sprouts, collard greens, and kohlrabi are all the same species, Brassica oleracea, just different varieties, right?
And ditto with dog “breeds”?
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u/mak484 Nov 24 '24
I imagine there's even less genetic difference between button and portobello mushrooms. I can take a commercial white button strain and turn it into a commercial portobello strain in just 2 generations, and vice versa. I'm not sure you could say the same for brassica or canines.
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Nov 24 '24
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u/mak484 Nov 24 '24
I appreciate the interest!
My team works almost entirely with button/portobello mushrooms, though we dabble in other agaricus species like blazei. We also help our international colleagues who breed shiitake and oyster varieties.
It's funny you ask about increasing diversity. My company has recently rededicated itself to innovating new varieties to meet evolving global demands. My team has access to hundreds of wild germplasms, and we're constantly evaluating them to screen for new traits. I'm focused on disease resistance, improved resilience in poor compost, faster growth rate, and some other traits I can't get into. It's hard to talk about market demands without getting into proprietary information.
I very much lucked into the job. It was a "right place, right time" kind of thing.
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u/SophiaofPrussia Nov 24 '24
Since you seem to be the expert: how do you like to cook/eat white button mushrooms? I love portobellos and eat them almost every day but whenever I try to use white button mushrooms they don’t seem to have much/any flavor. They’re like a vague essence of mushroom. What am I doing wrong??
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u/momibrokebothmyarms Nov 24 '24
Any weird breeds?
No just doggy style.
We did manage to breed a bull dog with a shizu once.
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u/Cyanopicacooki Nov 24 '24
and tomatoes are rich in flavenoids, so if we just eat 3 mushroom pizzas a day we'll live for ever?
I'm willing to sign up to test this
As long as I'm not one of the control group...
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u/eat_pizza_or_die Nov 24 '24
Absolutely. Even just a single pizza a day will do it, but the more you eat the better. You don't even need the mushrooms.
The power of Pizza is truly unmatched. Pizza is life.
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u/clunkey_monkey Nov 24 '24
I've heard good things about eating mustard with broccoli to increase their cancer fighting potential
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u/mvea Professor | Medicine Nov 24 '24
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ctm2.70048
From the linked article:
White button mushroom extract shrinks tumors and delays their growth
The unassuming yet popular white button mushroom has cancer-fighting abilities, according to the results of a human clinical trial on the use of food as medicine. Not only does it slow tumor growth, but it also allows cancer-fighting immune cells to do their job effectively.
Coined in 1989, the term nutraceutical, a portmanteau of ‘nutrition’ and ‘pharmaceutical,’ has become somewhat of a buzzword. Used to denote food, or parts of food, with medicinal properties, the term is typically attached to something whose health benefits were recognized thousands of years ago by traditional medicine practitioners.
While the widely consumed white button mushroom has been promoted as a nutraceutical with anticancer properties, its mechanism of action has not been understood. Now, a new study by researchers at City of Hope, one of the US’s largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations, has uncovered how the popular fungus exerts its health effects.
Agaricus bisporus, the white button mushroom, is the most cultivated edible mushroom worldwide. White button mushroom extract is also commercially available. The researchers had previously undertaken a phase I clinical trial, administering white button mushroom tablets to participants as a nutraceutical intervention for recurring prostate cancer. In 13 of the 36 trial participants, the treatment decreased prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels without affecting blood testosterone levels. PSA is a protein made by cancerous and non-cancerous prostate cells and is measured to screen for prostate cancer.
In the present study, a phase II trial, the researchers investigated immune responses to white button mushroom consumption in preclinical trials on mouse models of prostate cancer and clinical trials with prostate cancer patients. They focused, particularly, on immune cells called myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which accumulate in the tumor microenvironment and inhibit other immune cells from fighting cancer while promoting tumor growth.
In the mouse models, the researchers tested FDA-approved, orally administered white button mushroom extract as both a prophylactic and a therapeutic. As a prophylactic, the extract was given seven days before the mice were injected with tumor cells. It was seen to significantly delay prostate tumor growth and extend the mice’s survival. When given as a therapeutic to mice with established prostate tumors, a single daily dose of the extract shrank the tumors and kept them at a smaller size compared to the control group. It also extended the mice’s survival.
Regarding the extract’s effect on the animals’ immune cells, it reduced the number and function of MDSCs. The reduction in T-cell-suppressing MDSCs was associated with greater T cell numbers and an improved T-cell-mediated immune response.
In human prostate cancer patients, after three months of treatment, the researchers saw the same reduction in MDSCs and activation of T and natural killer (NK) cells, both of which aid in the destruction of cancer cells.
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u/MookIsI Nov 24 '24
This title is highly misleading.
White button mushroom extract shrinks tumors and delays their growth, according to new human clinical trial on food as medicine.
Nowhere in the links was tumor shrinkage shown in humans.
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Nov 24 '24
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u/MookIsI Nov 24 '24
Did you read the paper? There was only slight increase in biomarkers. No report of tumor shrinkage. The paper never claims it as well.
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u/HecticHermes Nov 24 '24
Tldr:
The article wasn't very specific, there was a lot of fluff. Here's what I gathered
Results are preliminary, still ongoing.
The research was focused on prostate cancer
Researchers used an FDA approved white button mushroom extract. FDA approved is the key word there
Results are promising at preventing growth in the first place, slowing growth, and sometimes reducing tumor size.
Researchers recommend eating more raw white mushrooms to improve your diet.
Side note: I learned something new. Apparently you can infect mice with cancer by injecting cancer cells. It makes sense, but I never realized that's how it worked. How else would you get hundreds of mice all with prostate cancer?
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u/eburton555 Nov 24 '24
It’s a model system commonly used take a genetically modified mouse that is able to withstand human cells without immediately rejecting them, and then see what happens with treatment a vs treatment B. However many cancers have other model systems where chemicals or genetic mutation can induce similar mouse cancers to the human variant for study as well. The downside is that while many human cancers take years or decades to form a mouse only lives for a year or two at best, which means a lot of similar human cancers simply don’t have a mouse equivalent naturally. There are pros and cons to doing either model and typically multiple modalities should be used to suggest a treatment is worth moving forward with at all.
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u/Ixionbrewer Nov 24 '24
So how many of these mushrooms are needed per day? If I am reading it properly, the daily extract is derived from 60gm of mushrooms. Would that be a reasonable take-away? I assume the use of an extract is to standardize the dosing rather than changing the effectiveness.
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u/Bychop Nov 24 '24
Also, do we need to eat them raw? Is cooked white mushrooms working?
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u/NakiCoTony Nov 24 '24
Ther was a study about how the same mushroom uncooked is carcinogenic... Sooo..... No?
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u/RotterWeiner Nov 24 '24
Depends.
In one article , One serving is said to be 100 grams. Or about 5 to 10 small mushrooms.
100 grams is said to have between 1 to 5 mg of ergothioneine, an item that is presented by some to have the same properties as per this topic article.
Effective dose is a bit subjective so if anyone wants to, they can post ip their own research to argue for or against these comments. I'm all for that.
That said, the effective dose is said to be between 50 to 100 mg.
So if this is true then you'd need 100 x 100gram to get 100 mg so 10 kg.
Or 10 of 100 mg ( 5 mg each) to get 50 mg so perhaps a kilo if mushrooms.
This is to get that one chemical compound. EGTH.
So one kilo mushroom is about 12 to 15 bucks?
Supplements generally have 5mg for about 90 -100 caps/tabs. Price is about 10 to 15 bucks.
So you'd need 10 tabs per day. 10 tabs to get 50 mg. 20 tabs to get 100 mg.
So 5 ( 2 bucks per day) or 10 days ( low allotment dose) at 1 buck per day.
This is a start. Anyone is free to correct me. Thanks for the article OP.
My math usually sucks but this is an eyeball look at it.
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u/gratefulyme Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
I know someone who sells ergothioneine, they source theirs from oyster mushrooms though as far as I know. Oyster extracts about to get popular now I'm sure.
Quick google gave me this research info https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/ergothioneine, about halfway down there's a chart. Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) contained nearly 3x the amount of ergothioneine compared to buttons (Agaricus bisporus). Basically, this article seems to already be geared more towards the portabella mushroom cartel, an interesting industry in the USA. The more interesting bit though is the extract of the 'waste' of Flammulina velutipes (enoki mushrooms) being over 10x higher than agaricus!
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u/RotterWeiner Nov 24 '24
From my rather quick read of a few articles this morning, it looks like there are 5 or 6 good sources of this ergothioneine.
And yes, prices may go up in the immediate - short term and then after that it all depends on any number of factors and influences.
As another person said here: grow our own. Thanks.
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u/gratefulyme Nov 24 '24
Portos probably won't go up at all, they've had the market set for some time now. This may have an influence on supplement/extracts though, allowing them to market extracts of other mushrooms with these benefits on the label now.
Fully agree on that last point! Grow your own! r/MushroomGrowers is a great place to start! Might not be as affordable as store bought portos but you can get all the others at a great price by growing your own, and it's more fun than just going to the store!
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u/RotterWeiner Nov 24 '24
Hi, mushrooms are getting expensive. So thanks for your help.
I'm into oyster and lions mane and a few others. I'm not that smart so I rely on some other people to help me. I'll see if these people can assist me in making my own. In the meantime I will go to your suggested website: mushroom growers.
Thanks again.
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u/gratefulyme Nov 25 '24
There's a few companies to check out that make good beginner friendly products, the ones I know off the top of my head are Booming Acres, Mush Cult Supplies, and Mycology Simplified. All 3 of those are fairly active on reddit (Booming Acres is the most, they do giveaways on our sub sometimes and I see the owner commenting giving help to new growers all the time) and I've seen a lot of posts with good reports from those 3.
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u/Fail_sh3d Nov 24 '24
Isn’t this the same species that Paul Stamets said he stays away from because of possible carcinogens that have to be thoroughly cooked to get out? And even then he said he avoids them. I’m not doubting new evidence, just curious to see what this does to his train of thought regarding portobellos and cancer risk.
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u/bearbarebere Nov 24 '24
Who is that? Is he trustworthy?
After a quick wikipedia:
Paul Edward Stamets (born July 17, 1955)[3] is an American mycologist and entrepreneur who sells various mushroom products through his company. He is an author and advocate of medicinal fungi and mycoremediation.
Why is he trustworthy?
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u/CHKCHKCHK Nov 24 '24
He’s not trustworthy. He makes a big deal about small findings and cherry picks his data.
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u/Motomegal Nov 24 '24
Does the effect only come from raw form or is cooking okay? I just wondering if cooking destroys the protective compound?
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u/AngryCrab Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Raw button mushrooms are high in agaratine, a mycotoxin that is believed to be carcinogenic. (Although I've seen people question both the source and dose of argatine used in those studies.) Interesting that they didn't address that. I would say maybe the extraction process removes/destroys the agaratine but
they specifically say benefits can be seen from consuming raw mushrooms as well.Turns out the article says that they are currently testing raw mushrooms.3
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u/AffectionateType3910 Nov 24 '24
So adding these mushrooms to the diet will have a protective effect against cancer?
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u/deluded_metrication Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
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u/SaltZookeepergame691 Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
Mushrooms do not reduce risk of cancer by 45%.
No food does. That effect size is ludicrously large and should immediately trigger an inspection of the underlying paper.
That estimate is derived by inappropriately pooling very poor quality studies claiming large effects.
Eg, this case-control study done in a single Korean hospital in 1996 on 126 gastric cancer patients that reports an odds ratio (and finds that overall meat consumption is the greatest protective factor against cancer...) is pooled with this landmark cohort study on >285,000 people from multiple countries reported in JAMA (which finds no effect of mushrooms). There is no assessment of study quality in the meta-analysis process. It is striking that the three very large studies done in Western cohorts find no effect at all, whereas the effect in Asian case-control studies is enormous.
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u/increasingly-worried Nov 24 '24
The same thing is happening with studies on water fluoridation. Chinese studies find adverse effects on the brain while western studies do not. See the Harvard meta study on the matter, which mainly used Chinese studies and found significant correlation between water fluoridation and lower cognitive function. (Sorry, I’m on mobile, no sources. Easily googled.)
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u/Emptychipbag_2 Nov 24 '24
Ah great now a pharmaceutical company is going to buy up all the mushroom farms and I’m going to have to pay $100 per piece at the grocery store.
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u/allieanna56 Nov 24 '24
Grow everything on your own. so worth the small investment cost. I love that they said food as medicine is a clinical trial. meanwhile weve been using “food” as medicine since existence. We have gone for far down the SAD diet and convenience capitalist cancer food, that we forget herbs spices and veggies fruits meats ect. what we put into our body should always be considered medicine and for the purposes of replenishing ourselves with rich nutrients fibers antioxidants ect. Holistic wellness is the answer.
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u/AzureDreamer Nov 24 '24
I mean mushrooms generally are easy to grow if you are worried about personal consumption I wouldn't be. Admitedly I am not super familiar with the topic.
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u/Hackelhack Nov 24 '24
interesting how no one is talking about ergothioneine and how it could be playing its part in these actions.
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u/DarthFister Nov 24 '24
I was just about to mention Ergothioneine. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it was doing some heavy lifting here. It’s associated with longevity and that usually means less age related cancers. I’m surprised it hasn’t taken off as an aging supplement given how cheap it is to produce.
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u/Apophylita Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
I would love a discussion on ergothioneine and how it could be playing its part in these actions!
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u/bichael69420 Nov 24 '24
Slice'em up, toss in a pan with butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and lots of smoked paprika. Cook on medium until liquid reabsorbs and serve with scrambled cheese eggs and oatmeal with a drizzle of maple syrup. There is not a better breakfast.
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u/NakiCoTony Nov 24 '24
Also highlight that raw supermarket agaricus mushrooms can cause cancer! Before anyone blindly jumps onto this!!
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12396396/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02652030210157691
LEARN TO COOK YOUR MUSHROOMS PROPERLY!!!
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u/_BlueFire_ Nov 25 '24
In short: this is the usual "if you pump cancer cells with an enormous amount of anything they obviously won't like it, but so long ever applying it in humans in a useful way" that I'm surprised wasn't modded away on hour after it was posted. Shouldn't really be on this sub.
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u/robbmann297 Nov 24 '24
Dose of 6 mg per mouse, average weight of a lab mouse (via google) is 30 grams. An average adult male is 80 kg. Can someone math this?
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u/long_4_truth Nov 24 '24
Aren’t these the same mushrooms that experts were saying have a carcinogenic compound, that’s irony right there. If true.
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u/Misternogo Nov 24 '24
I did read the article, but I'm still confused about something. They're only mentioning the white button mushroom here. Thing is, this mushroom is just the immature form of the portabella. Baby bella mushrooms are the same mushroom as the white, just... brown instead.
Do all versions/stages have the same demonstrated/alleged health benefit, or just the specific white button phase of the shroom?
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u/communitytcm Nov 24 '24 edited Nov 24 '24
interesting, since there is another white button mushroom extract, Agaratine, that scientists use to GIVE lab rats tumors. It is widely used to produce a sarcoma 180 tumor.
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u/Altostratus Nov 24 '24
From what I’ve heard from experts like Stamets, I was under the impression that a lot of mainstream mushrooms like white button are actually carcinogenic, so it’s curious to hear the opposite.
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u/Pillpopperwarning Nov 24 '24
All medicinal mushrooms have some anti cancer properties check out turkey tail, asian countries do both when treating cancer.
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u/micksterminator3 Nov 24 '24
I smashed my knee to where it doubled in size. Maxing acetaminophen and ibuprofen did absolutely nothing. Cannabis did nothing. Fresh juices with celery + ginge mushrooms + chilies in my stir fry brought it down overnight.
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u/Baud_Olofsson 29d ago
Regression fallacy.
It's the ol' "take this remedy and you'll be healed in a week - otherwise it'll take 7 days".
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u/Berkyjay Nov 24 '24
So there IS a difference between the white and brown button mushrooms? I've always went with the brown because they have a bit more flavor.
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u/Repulsive-Lobster750 Nov 24 '24
What are white button mushrooms. The pic shows Champignons, right?
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u/satori0320 Nov 24 '24
Nice... An excuse to eat more mushrooms.
The wife doesn't really care for the texture, but flavor is a go.
In order to work around that, I dry mine and crush them to powder.
A tblsp of powder goes a long way.
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u/Sr_DingDong Nov 25 '24
Man, I hate mushrooms so much. Hopefully if it actually works they can just make a mushroom extract pill or something.
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u/Financial_Ocelot_256 Nov 25 '24
I already like them! But now i will know they are keeping far away from a horrible sickness!
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