Alternate Treatments Prostate Cancer – Mushrooms and Prostate Cancer

‘Could there be a link between mushrooms and prostate cancer?’ someone asks. ‘Could there really be a link? And if indeed there is, what role exactly can the edible fungi possibly have on the disease: causal or curative?’

These are cogent questions that deserve answers, and what this article does is that it provides those answers in the light of the available information concerning the disease, and with respect to results observed from various researches and clinical trials all over the country? er, the world.

For starters, you should know that being fungi, certain types of mushrooms are besotted with mycotoxins, poisons produced by fungal growth in certain cereals, nuts, fruits, and vegetables, most particularly aflatoxin. Aflatoxin is a most potent carcinogen (a potential cancer causing agent), perhaps the most potent one known to man at this time. Once it is ingested into the body, it is very quickly metabolized by the liver and converted into an epoxide, aflatoxin M1. Chronic exposure to this metabolite aflatoxin M1 leads to a high risk of developing certain forms of cancer, in particular cancer of the liver through mutations in the p53 gene, an important gene in preventing cell cycle progression.

However, there are conversely a group of medicinal mushrooms, species of which have been used in folk medicine for literally thousands of years. Specifically, the Asian varieties are believed to have incredible potential as anticancer agents, as well as other properties in the anti-viral and immunity-enhancing genre. Especially under intense study by ethnobotanists and medical researchers even here in the United States, the Maitake, shiitake, Agaricus blazei, chaga, and lingzhi mushrooms have been subjects of intense study.

So far, the results have been inconclusive. There is little doubt that these specific mushrooms have a curative effect, but the precise effect on cancer is not very clear; certainly what the ‘shrooms do for prostate cancer patients have not been determined at this time. A 2008 review for one concluded that there “isn’t currently enough evidence to promote the use of mushrooms or mushroom extracts in the treatment of specific diseases,” although there was an addition of the fact that an urgency exists in the medical community for future clinical trials and further research in the area. To that end, reviews are being done of large volume studies that have been done which have been published and said to have positive yield.

Prostate cancer is the fourth most common cancer in men all over the world, and the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. Surgery, radiation therapy, and medications that alter hormone activity, all conventional treatments for the condition, have their limitations, and there is pressure for better means of treating the disease. Mushrooms are being looked into which have anticancer properties, especially the effect of the Asian shiitake mushroom extract one breast, colon, liver, and prostate tumors. There were significant reductions in tumor size in mice, but the results don’t offer enough confidence for assertion; hence, more experiments.

1. Alternate Treatments Prostate Cancer – More Alternative Medicine