Mushrooms in cancer treatment

There are many websites that discuss using mushrooms to treat cancer. From time to time this is also discussed in the media. In 2000, The Cancer Research Campaign commissioned Professor Smith to prepare a report on the use of mushrooms in medicine. Professor Smith is a scientist (not a medical doctor). The report was published by Cancer Research UK and the University of Strathclyde.

The reason for using mushrooms in medicine centres on the claim that they boost immunity. This has been said to help reduce the risk of cancer and to help treat cancer once it has developed. Some of this research is only laboratory based so far. Some testing of mushrooms on people has been done in Japan and China. In some people the mushrooms did seem to have some effect on their cancer. But we have to be very cautious about the results as most of the trials were not randomised or controlled. So, the patients having the mushroom 'treatment' were not compared with another group of patients who were not being treated with mushrooms or drugs developed from mushrooms.

Professor Smith stresses that he is not recommending that people rush out and start eating every sort of mushroom. This is early research and we don't know yet whether mushrooms really have medical uses. There are many different types of mushrooms and it is highly likely that the different types have different effects on us. The common white button mushroom has no known health benefits. Adding all types of mushrooms into your diet may not be of particular help. There is some evidence from other countries that people who eat particular types of mushrooms all their lives have a lower risk of getting cancer.

Other research suggests that some mushroom extracts can help reduce cancer treatment side effects. When people took the mushrooms a week before they started treatment, they did appear to help with side effects of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy, including sickness and hair loss.

There are different ways of taking these mushrooms. They can be eaten fresh or dried. Or extracts can be taken as food supplements. In China, Japan and Korea purified compounds are made and used along side chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Two of the substances (PSK and PSP) are made by drug companies and are available only on prescription. These are not currently available in the UK. Again, we don't yet know enough about this to know which types of mushroom products, taken in which way, could help with cancer. Professor Smith suggested that the supplements were better than eating whole mushrooms in food. Sometimes people in Asian countries boil the mushrooms and then drink the water that they were boiled in.

In the UK, powdered (or sometimes an elixir of ) Reishi, Shiitake and Maitaki mushrooms are available. These can be bought from health food shops. There is nothing in the mushrooms that would be harmful (as far as we know). But we need to stress that we don't know how helpful they will be and more research is needed.

You can find the complete report on mushrooms in cancer medicine on the Cancer Research UK website.