Reishi Mushrooms: Which Benefits Do They Really Have?
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Reishi Mushrooms
Another Monday Research Review, another mushroom! If we keep this up, we’ll have to rename it “Mushroom Monday”.
But, there’s so much room for things to say, and these are fun guys to write about, as we check the science for any spore’ious claims…
Why do people take reishi?
Popular health claims for the reishi mushroom include:
- Immune health
- Cardiovascular health
- Protection against cancer
- Antioxidant qualities
- Reduced fatigue and anxiety
And does the science agree?
Let’s take a look, claim by claim:
Immune health
A lot of research for this has been in vitro (ie, with cell cultures in labs), but promising, for example:
Immunomodulating Effect of Ganoderma lucidum (Lingzhi) and Possible Mechanism
(that is the botanical name for reishi, and the Chinese name for it, by the way)
That’s not to say there are no human studies though; here it was found to boost T-cell production in stressed athletes:
Cardiovascular health
Here we found a stack of evidence for statistically insignificant improvements in assorted measures of cardiovascular health, and some studies where reishi did not outperform placebo.
Because the studies were really not that compelling, instead of taking up room (and your time) with them, we’re going to move onto more compelling, exciting science, such as…
Protection against cancer
There’s a lot of high quality research for this, and a lot of good results. The body of evidence here is so large that even back as far as 2005, the question was no longer “does it work” or even “how does it work”, but rather “we need more clinical studies to find the best doses”. Researchers even added:
❝At present, lingzhi is a health food supplement to support cancer patients, yet the evidence supporting the potential of direct in vivo anticancer effects should not be underestimated.❞
Check it out:
Anticancer effects of Ganoderma lucidum: a review of scientific evidence
Just so you know we’re not kidding about the weight of evidence, let’s drop a few extra sources:
- Ganoderma lucidum: a rational pharmacological approach to surmount cancer
- Ganoderma lucidum as an anti-cancer agent
- Extract from Ganoderma lucidum suppresses cervical cancer cell malignancy
- Ganoderma lucidum spore oil induces apoptosis of breast cancer cells
- Ganoderma lucidum enhances carboplatin chemotherapy effect
- Ganoderma lucidum inhibits prostate cancer cell migration
- Ganoderma lucidum fruiting body extracts inhibit colorectal cancer
- Inhibitory activity of medicinal mushroom Ganoderma lucidum on colorectal cancer
- Ganoderma lucidum (reishi mushroom) for cancer treatment
By the way, we shortened most of those titles for brevity, but almost all of the continued with “by” followed by a one-liner of how it does it.
So it’s not a “mysterious action” thing, it’s a “this is a very potent medicine and we know how it works” thing.
Antioxidant qualities
Here we literally only found studies to say no change was found, one that found a slight increase of antioxidant levels in urine. It’s worth noting that levels of a given thing (or its metabolites, in the case of some things) in urine are often quite unhelpful regards knowing what’s going on in the body, because we get to measure only what the body lost, not what it gained/kept.
So again, let’s press on:
Reduced fatigue and anxiety
Most of the studies for this that we could find pertained to health-related quality of life for cancer patients specifically, so (while they universally give glowing reports of reishi’s benefits to health and happiness of cancer patients), that’s a confounding factor when it comes to isolating its effects on reduction of fatigue and anxiety in people without cancer.
Here’s one that looked at it in the case of reduction of fatigue, anxiety, and other factors, in patients without cancer (but with neurathenia), in which they found it was “significantly superior to placebo with respect to the clinical improvement of symptoms”.
Summary:
- Reishi mushroom’s anti-cancer properties are very, very clear
- There is also good science to back immune health claims
- It also has been found to significantly reduce fatigue and anxiety in unwell patients (we’d love to see more studies on its benefits in otherwise healthy people, though)
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The Sprout Book – by Doug Evans
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Sprouting seeds are more nutritious than most people think, and “seeds” is also a much broader category than people think. Beyond even chia and sunflower and such, this book bids us remember that onions do not just appear on supermarket shelves fully formed (to give just one example of many); most plants come from seeds and of those, most can be usefully sprouted.
The author, most well-known for his tech companies, here is selling us a very low-tech health kick with very little profit to be found except for our health. By sprouting seeds of many kinds at home, we can enjoy powerful superfoods that are not only better than, but also cheaper than, most supplements.
Nor are the benefits of sprouting things marginal; we’re not talking about a 1–10% increase in bioavailable so much as what’s often a 100–1000% increase.
After explaining the science and giving a primer on sprouting things for oneself, there is a wide selection of recipes, but the biggest benefit of the book is in just getting the reader up-and-running with at-home sprouting.
Bottom line: if you like the idea of letting food be your medicine and even like the idea of essentially growing your own food with zero gardening skills, then this is an excellent book for you.
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The Easiest Way To Take Up Journaling
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Dear Diary…
It’s well-established that journaling is generally good for mental health. It’s not a magical panacea, as evidenced by The Diaries of Franz Kafka for example (that man was not in good mental health). But for most of us, putting our thoughts and feelings down on paper (or the digital equivalent) is a good step for tidying our mind.
And as it can be said: mental health is also just health.
But…
What to write about?
It’s about self-expression (even if only you will read it), and…
❝Writing about traumatic, stressful or emotional events has been found to result in improvements in both physical and psychological health, in non-clinical and clinical populations.
In the expressive writing paradigm, participants are asked to write about such events for 15–20 minutes on 3–5 occasions.
Those who do so generally have significantly better physical and psychological outcomes compared with those who write about neutral topics.❞
Source: Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing
In other words, write about whatever moves you.
Working from prompts
If you read the advice above and thought “but I don’t know what moves me”, then fear not. It’s perfectly respectable to work from prompts, such as:
- What last made you cry?
- What last made you laugh?
- What was a recent meaningful moment with family?
- What is a serious mistake that you made and learned from?
- If you could be remembered for just one thing, what would you want it to be?
In fact, sometimes working from prompts has extra benefits, precisely because it challenges us to examine things we might not otherwise think about.
If a prompt asks “What tends to bring you most joy recently?” and the question stumps you, then a) you now are prompted to look at what you can change to find more joy b) you probably wouldn’t have thought of this question—most depressed people don’t, and if you cannot remember recent joy, then well, we’re not here to diagnose, but let’s just say that’s a symptom.
A quick aside: if you or a loved oneare prone to depressive episodes, here’s a good resource, by the way:
The Mental Health First-Aid That You’ll Hopefully Never Need
And in the event of the mental health worst case scenario:
The six prompts we gave earlier are just ideas that came to this writer’s mind, but they’re (ok, some bias here) very good ones. If you’d like more though, here’s a good resource:
550+ Journal Prompts: The Ultimate List
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
While it’s not good to get stuck in ruminative negative thought spirals, it is good to have a safe outlet to express one’s negative thoughts/feelings:
Remember, your journal is (or ideally, should be) a place without censure. If you fear social consequences should your journal be read, then using an app with a good security policy and encryption options can be a good idea for journaling
Finch App is a good free option if it’s not too cutesy for your taste, because in terms of security:
- It can’t leak your data because your data never leaves your phone (unless you manually back up your data and then you choose to put it somewhere unsafe)
- It has an option to require passcode/biometrics etc to open the app
As a bonus, it also has very many optional journaling prompts, and also (optional) behavioral activation prompts, amongst more other offerings that we don’t have room to list here.
Take care!
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Inheritance – by Dr. Sharon Moalem
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We know genes make a big difference to a lot about us, but how much? And, the genes we have, we’re stuck with, right?
Dr. Sharon Moalem shines a bright light into some of the often-shadowier nooks and crannies of our genetics, covering such topics as:
- How much can (and can’t) be predicted from our parents’ genes—even when it comes to genetic traits that both parents have, and Gregor Mendel himself would (incorrectly) think obvious
- How even something so seemingly simple and clear as genetic sex, very definitely isn’t
- How traumatic life events can cause epigenetic changes that will scar us for generations to come
- How we can use our genetic information to look after our health much better
- How our life choices can work with, or overcome, the hand we got dealt in terms of genes
The style of the book is conversational, down to how there’s a lot of “I” and “you” in here, and the casual style belies the heavy, sharp, up-to-date science contained within.
Bottom line: if you’d like insight into the weird and wonderful nuances of genetics as found in this real, messy, perfectly chaotic world, this book is an excellent choice.
Click here to check out Inheritance, and learn more about yours!
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Older, Faster, Stronger – by Margaret Webb
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The author, now in her 60s, made it her mission in her 50s to become the best runner she could. Before that, she’d been a keen runner previously, but let things slip rather in her 40s. But the book’s not about her 40s, it’s about her 50s and onwards, and other female runners in their 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s.
There’s a lot of this book that’s about people’s individual stories, and those should certainly be enough to prompt almost any reader that “if they can do it, I can”.
A lot, meanwhile, is about health and exercise science, training methods, and what has worked for various later-life athletes, including the author. So, it’s also partway instruction manual, with plenty of reference to science and medical considerations too.
Bottom line: sometimes, life throws us challenges. Sometimes, the best response is “Yeah? Bet” and surprise everyone.
Click here to check out Older, Faster, Stronger, and become all those cool things!
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Young Mind Young Body – by Sue Ziang
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This is a very “healthy mind in a healthy body” book, consistent with the author’s status as a holistic health coach. Sometimes that produces a bit of a catch-22 regarding where to start, but for Ziang, the clear answer is to start with the mind, and specifically, one’s perception of one’s own age.
She advocates for building a young mind in a young body, and yes, that’s mind-building much like body-building. This does not mean any kind of wilful self-delusion, but rather, choosing the things that we do get to choose along the way.
The bridge between mind and body, for Ziang, is meditation—which is reasonable, as it’s very much mind-stuff and also very much neurological and has a very real-world impact on the body’s broader health, even simply by such mechanisms as changing breathing, heart rate, neurotransmitter levels, endocrine functions, and the like.
When it comes to the more physical aspects of health, her dietary advice is completely in line with what we write here at 10almonds. Hydrate well, eat more plants, especially beans and greens and whole grains, get good fats in, enjoy spices, practice mindful eating, skip the refined carbohydrates, be mindful of bio-individuality (e.g. one’s own personal dietary quirks that stem from physiology; some of us react differently to this kind of food or that for genetic reasons, and that’s not something to be overlooked).
In the category of exercise, she’s simply about moving more, which while not comprehensive, is not bad advice either.
Bottom line: if you’re looking for an “in” to holistic health and wondering where to start, this book is a fine and very readable option.
Click here to check out “Young Mind Young Body”, and transform yours!
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What Menopause Does To The Heart
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World Menopause Day: Menopause & Cardiovascular Disease Risk
Today, the 18th of October, is World Menopause Day.
The theme for this year is cardiovascular disease (CVD), and if your first reaction is to wonder what that has to do with the menopause, then this is the reason why it’s being featured. Much of the menopause and its effects are shrouded in mystery; not because of a lack of science (though sometimes a bit of that too), but rather, because it is popularly considered an unimportant, semi-taboo topic.
So, let’s be the change we want to see, and try to fix that!
What does CVD have to do with the menopause?
To quote Dr. Anjana Nair:
❝The metabolic and clinical factors secondary to menopause, such as dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, fat redistribution and systemic hypertension, contribute to the accelerated risk for cardiovascular aging and disease.
Atherosclerosis appears to be the end result of the interaction between cardiovascular risk factors and their accentuation during the perimenopausal period.
The increased cardiovascular risk in menopause stems from the exaggerated effects of changing physiology on the cardiovascular system.❞
Source: Cardiovascular Changes in Menopause
See also: Menopause-associated risk of cardiovascular disease
Can we do anything about it?
Yes, we can! Here be science:
- Menopause Transition and Cardiovascular Disease Risk: Implications for Timing of Early Prevention: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association
- Cardiovascular risk in menopausal women and our evolving understanding of menopausal hormone therapy: risks, benefits, and current guidelines for use
This (in few words: get your hormone levels checked, and consider HRT if appropriate) is consistent with the advice from gynecologist Dr. Jen Gunter, whom we featured back in August:
What You Should Have Been Told About The Menopause Beforehand
What about lifestyle changes?
We definitely can do some good things; here’s what the science has to say:
- Mediterranean diet: yes, evidence-based
- High soy consumption: mixed evidence, unclear. So, eat it if you want, don’t if you don’t.
- Supplements e.g. vitamins and minerals: yes, evidence-based.
- Supplements e.g. herbal preparations: many may help, but watch out for adverse interactions with meds. Check with your pharmacist or doctor.
- Supplements; specifically CBD: not enough evidence yet
- Exercise: yes, evidence-based—especially low-impact high-resistance training, for bone strength, as well as regular moderate-intensity exercise and/or High-Intensity Interval Training, to guard against CVD.
For a full low-down on all of these:
Revealing the evidence-based lifestyle solutions to managing your menopause symptoms
Want to know more?
You can get the International Menopause Society’s free downloadable booklet here:
Menopause & Cardiovascular Disease: What Women Need To Know
You may also like our previous main feature:
What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?
Take care!
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