The Other Magic Mushrooms - Cancer Therapy That Works

Cancer is everywhere. It’s in all of us, all the time. Cancer becomes a problem only when it out­performs and then overwhelms your body’s natural defence mechanisms. If I could choose only one kind of therapy to protect myself against cancer, even if I’d already been diagnosed with it, my choice wouldn’t be chemotherapy or radiation. Instead, I’d pick medicinal mushrooms. And if hundreds of millions of cancer cells had already spread through­out my body (which would be tough for even the healthiest immune system to deal with), I might use chemo or radiation to cut down on my cancer load, but I’d use medicinal mushrooms to treat the cancer and help me heal faster from the chemo. To understand why I would choose this course, it helps to understand how your body normally defends itself against cancer, and what medicinal mushrooms can do.

As long as your immune system is well tuned, it keeps cancer from proliferating. You fight this fight every minute of every day, and when your immune system is healthy, you always have the upper hand. One of the things that make a healthy immune system naturally effective against cancer is that it doesn’t rely on just one tactic to defend you. If your defences were that single-minded, you would have succumbed to cancer years ago. In truth, we know of more than 230 different types of cells and chemicals in the immune system. Some are highly specialized, able to perform only one defensive move. Others are more versatile, attacking anything that’s pathogenic or abnormal. One type circulates through your body in a dormant state, waiting to be activated by contact with whatever invader(s) it was designed to target. Once activated, it fires its particular weapon and sends up a chemical “flare” for help, which arrives in droves. And, these defenders constantly com­municate with each other so any necessary strategic adjustments to the battle plan can quickly be made. It’s through this flexible, adaptable interplay of all the different capabilities of your immune system that your body can, day after day, recognize, target, neu­tralize, and destroy cancer.

A weak link in this system is that many immune cells are activated only when they bond to a spe­cific receptor—a polysaccharide—on the culprit’s “skin.” Only then can your immune system sound the alarm. This means that if a cancer cell, with its particular polysaccharide keyhole, floats past one of your immune cells that aren’t equipped with the right key, no link-up occurs and your immune system’s alarms don’t go off. This buys precious time for the cancer to gain the upper hand. It’s a serious vulner­ability, especially if your immune system is already stressed by aging, diet, or environmental factors.

Help From Friendly Fungi

Thirty years ago, Western medicine figured out what Traditional Chinese Medicine recorded more than 4,000 years earlier: Certain species of mush­rooms are powerful weapons against cancer. Since then, scores of Western studies have confirmed this claim and demonstrated at least in part how medici­nal mushrooms work. They provide more polysac­charide “keyholes” for your immune cells’ “keys” to try, thereby increasing the odds that your immune system’s defences will turn on. Thus far, scientists have identified more than 30 different medicinal mushrooms with substantial health benefits, at least six of which seem tailor-made to work with the human immune system in the fight against cancer; each provides its own particular collection of those all-important polysaccharides.

Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) mushroom, also known as lingzhi in China, grows wild on decaying logs and tree stumps. Ganoderma lucidum has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than 4,000 years to treat liver disorders, hypertension, arthritis and other ailments. In modern times, the available data from human trials together with evidence from animal studies suggest that Ganoderma lucidum may have some positive benefits for cancer patients, as well as patients with liver disease.

What makes medicinal mushrooms all the more practical is that, while we have a pretty good understanding that can­cer occurs as the result of an immune system short­coming, we can’t always pinpoint precisely where the breakdown happened. And frankly, once you’re diagnosed with cancer, there’s seldom time to ask those whys and wherefores and test every possibility. The real beauty of cancer therapy using medicinal mushrooms is that they don’t “kill” anything, including cancer cells. That’s a huge difference from conventional cancer treatments. They’re not toxic at all. They don’t do massive collateral damage, and they don’t kick the struts out from under your immune system. They don’t hurt you. In fact, they make you stronger.

It’s important to recognize that when your immune system is healthy, absolutely nothing kills cancer better than your own body. And when your immune system falters and lets cancer gain a toehold, absolutely nothing available today gets it back on track better, faster, and more safely than medicinal mushroom combinations, which have been custom-designed to restore the human body’s immune strength.

Finding Your Fungus

Western soils are abundant with edible and hallucinogenic mush­rooms, but nearly all the significant medicinal mushrooms grow naturally in the Orient. That’s a concern, in light of the contamination and toxicity problems we’ve had lately with some products. When mushrooms grow, they can absorb toxins and pollutants from their environment. For that reason, I have carefully chosen clinically proven medicinal mushroom products that are cultivated organically according to stringent quality stan­dards. Follow label directions, or your health care provider’s instructions.

While mushrooms may grow in the dark, I can assure that learning more about the immune-boosting benefits of medicinal mushrooms will help shed some light on healthy ways to enhance your immunity and keep your defences strong each and every day.