Last Updated on August 6, 2020
We’re going to talk about Ganoderma lucidum, or reishi mushroom.
Mushroom extract is very popular with people, especially people who suffer from conditions like hepatitis or HIV/AIDS or people with autoimmune diseases. People with many chronic diseases often rely on different mushroom extracts.
There are many different types of mushrooms you can get. You can get caterpillar fungus, and you can get turkey tail. They’ve got funny names, but they contain unique sugars or polysaccharides in them that have an interesting effect on the immune function.
Mushroom extracts help the immune system recognize pathogens or bad cells by showing the immune system receptor sites on these cells. It’s almost as if the extract is shining a spotlight on the dangerous cells so the immune system can target and kill them more effectively.
The chemicals in specific mushrooms can also improve various aspects of your immune system by reducing inflammation and stimulating the killer cells to rid the body of rogue cells.
Mushroom extracts can also have a role in cancer treatment by keeping the immune system quite clean and pure and improving liver function. There are a couple of different liver enzymes that are normalized by these polysaccharides or these special sugars.
Some people mistakenly believe that because they have Candida and mushrooms are fungi, they should avoid mushrooms altogether. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I have no problem with people eating mushrooms in their diet, as long as they cook them properly and don’t have them raw. There’s no problem with eating cooked mushrooms, even if you have Candida.
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Are reishi mushrooms particularly good for Candida? Yes, they are in some cases.
In some cases, reishi mushrooms produce spectacular benefits for people. But for others, this same mushroom extract makes no difference whatsoever to the Candida levels in the stool. This is particularly true for the more invasive strains of Candida, like Candida glabrata, Candida auris, and Candida parapsilosis. These strains tend to be a bit more elusive. In contrast, Candida albicans tends to be much more responsive to extracts like the one from reishi mushrooms.
So am I in favor of mushroom extracts for Candida? I am, but don’t use them as a primary way of cleansing Candida from the body. There are far more effective supplements to take when it comes to Candida, particularly if you’re going to use combinations of grapefruit seed extract or garlic extract, and then some monounsaturated, some fatty acids along with that, like caprylic acid or the eicosenoic acid.
If you put all of these compounds together, they work better as a team than alone. The combination is more effective at targeting Candida, bacteria, and parasites in the gut. That’s why I prefer to use more of a broad spectrum antimicrobial than just pure reishi extract.
But if you’ve got an autoimmune disease, it’s certainly worth trying mushroom extracts like this to see if they affect the autonuclear antibody or the inflammatory pathways. If they start normalizing with reishi, definitely stay on it. But if they start elevating, then get off it, because it can go either way with autoimmune disease. For cancer, reishi extract is excellent. This is quite a good supplement to take for people also with HIV. Many HIV people will take a mushroom extract because it helps to normalize the immune function.
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