magic mushroom chemical help drug addicts and cancer patients

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Magic mushrooms taken by hippies do produce mystical experiences, but they should not be confused with faith, a theologian says.

In a recently published study, more than 60 per cent of research subjects who were given capsules of psilocybin derived from mushrooms described the experience as mystical and profound.



Critics say that the effect produced by magic mushrooms isn't a true spiritual experience.
(CBC)
But critics of the study say the manufactured spiritual feeling from magic mushrooms should not be confused with a true spiritual experience.

"All this did was stimulate that part of the human personality that produced certain feeling states and altered states of consciousness," said theologian Dave Reed, a professor at the University of Toronto. "Those are no criteria for an authentic encounter with God."

The researchers chose subjects who were religious, believing they would be less troubled by mystic side-effects. They don't yet know what would happen to subjects without spiritual beliefs.



Roland Griffiths says his team will study whether magic mushrooms can help cancer patients.
(CBC)
The research is meant to help scientists understand how our thoughts, emotions and behaviour are grounded in biology, the researchers said.

"We're just measuring what can be observed," said Roland Griffiths, a professor of neuroscience, psychiatry and behavioural biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who led the study. "We're not entering into 'Does God exist or not exist.' This work can't and won't go there."

'Potential is great'

In a commentary on the study, author Huston Smith, an authority in comparative religion, said mystical experience seems to be as old as humankind.

"This is the first scientific demonstration in 40 years, and the most rigorous ever, that profound mystical states can be produced safely in the laboratory. The potential is great."

Smith proposes studying what conditions and practices best help people to hold on to the "moments of revelation."

The research subjects said the experiences led to positive changes in their lives. Two months after taking the drug, 79 per cent said they felt a greater sense of well-being, which they likened to a life-altering event.

"When my eldest daughter was born, that was profoundly meaningful to me, and when my father recently passed away, that moved me very deeply," said Griffiths. "You know, the experience was sort of like that, they would say."

Looking inward

During the sessions, volunteers relaxed on a couch while wearing an eye mask and listening to classical music. They were encouraged to focus their attention inward. Some were given a placebo.

Psilocybin is a hallucinogen that hasn't been found to be toxic or addictive in animals or humans. It works by mimicking the effects of message-carrying serotonin on the brain.

Of the 36 healthy volunteers, almost one-third reported they felt anxious, depressed or even frightened after taking the drug, according to the report published in this week's online issue of the journal Psychopharmacology.

For most people, though, magic mushrooms or the compound in them may have therapeutic value.

Griffiths's team plans further studies to test whether the drug can help people with advanced cancer-related depression or anxiety, as well as the role of psilocybin in treating drug dependence.

"In terms of therapeutic uses, some of the things that have been suggested is terminal cancer patients, people with intractable pain," said Wende Wood, a psychiatric pharmacist in Toronto. "It would be for a small population, a very distinct population of people."

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Mushrooms have been valued throughout the world—particularly in Asia—as both food and medicine for centuries. Now, some members of the fungal kingdom are beginning to attract the attention of Western medicine.

Mushrooms have been used in Oriental medi-cine for over 7000 years. But only recently has the West begun to wake up to the medicinal and healing capabilities of these functional fungi. After several decades of extensive scientific scrutiny, various species show great promise against a raft of diseases.

Potent cancer fighter

A number of mushroom components stimulate the immune system and inhibit tumour growth. In particular, their ‘polysaccharides’—long-chain sugar molecules—have been repeat-edly proven to have antitumour and immunostimulant properties.

In the most comprehensive review of the literature, Cancer Research UK confirmed the anticancer activity of polysaccharides from various mush-rooms, including reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), shiitake (Lentinula edodes), maitake (Grifola frondosa) and kawara-take (Coriolus versicolor).

Of these, the shiitake mushroom and its polysaccharide lentinan have been the most extensively researched. Numerous studies have demonstrated lentinan’s powerful immune-boosting effects, which enhance the body’s natural antitumour capabilities rather than attack tumour cells themselves (Appl Microbiol Biotechnol, 2002; 60: 258–74).

First isolated in 1970, lentinan showed greater antitumour effects than other mushroom polysaccharides and was effective against some, though not all, types of tumours (Int J Cancer, 1974; 12: 259–61). In Japan, lentinan is approved for use as an anticancer drug. It is considered an important adjuvant treatment for several types of tumours, especially stomach and colorectal cancers.

In one study of advanced stomach cancer, chemotherapy patients who received injections of lentinan once or twice a week in addition to the usual drugs lived significantly longer and had a better quality of life compared with patients who received chemotherapy alone (Hepatogastroenterology, 1999; 46: 2662–8). Lentinan also seems to greatly reduce the debilitating side-effects of chemo such as nausea, pain, hair loss and reduced immunity.

However, although the compound given orally can reduce colon cancer in animals (J Altern Complement Med, 2002;
8: 581–9), a US study of more than 60 men with prostate cancer found that six months of treatment with shiitake extract halted the disease in only four of them (Urology, 2002; 60: 640–4).

More promising is the kawaratake mushroom. Coriolus, a long-estab-lished folk medicine for cancers of all kinds, is traditionally taken as a tea. Two extracts—polysaccharide-K (PSK; ‘krestin’) and polysaccharopeptide (PSP)—both have potent anticancer properties when taken orally. In fact, krestin is rated among the world’s best-selling cancer drugs—and among the world’s best-selling drugs overall—and has no major side-effects, making it useful for debilitated or elderly patients (Anticancer Res, 2002; 22: 1737–54).

In one randomized, placebo-controlled trial of more than 100 patients after cancer-related surgery, significantly more patients were still alive and disease-free after 10 years with PSK than with a placebo (Cancer Immunol Immunother, 1990; 31: 261–8).

In another Japanese trial of more than 400 patients, again after colo-rectal-cancer surgery, 75 per cent of those given PSK plus chemotherapy were alive after three years, compared with 40 per cent of those given only chemo (Dis Colon Rectum, 1992; 35: 123–30).

In a follow-up study of patients after radiotherapy for lung cancer, nearly 40 per cent of those taking PSK were still alive after five years compared with 16 per cent of those not taking PSK (Anticancer Res, 1993; 13: 1815–20).
PSK can also prolong life in those with cancers of the breast, nasophar-ynx, oesophagus and stomach (Altern Med Rev, 2000; 5: 4–27).

PSP, its sister polysaccharide, has also shown powerful benefits for the immune system, as well as substantially reducing pain and improving quality of life in those with cancers of the stomach, oesophagus, lung, ovary and cervix (Altern Med Rev, 2000; 5: 4–27).

Reishi and maitake mushrooms also have anticancer effects. Reishi appears to stimulate the immune system—in particular, tumour necrosis factor—to attack cancer cells (Int J Cancer, 1997; 70: 699–705). Maitake attacks the cancer cells directly. In one test-tube study, beta-glucan, the polysaccharide from maitake, killed over 95 per cent of prostate-cancer cells (Mol Urol, 2000; 4: 7–13).

Clinical trials are underway in the US and Japan not only with prostate cancer, but also with cancers of the breast, lung, liver and stomach (Smith JE et al. Medicinal Mushrooms and Cancer, Chapter 7. Cancer Research UK; see www.icnet. uk/labs/med_mush/med_mush.html).

According to City of Hope’s Beck-man Research Institute in Duarte, California, even eating those white supermarket mushrooms—from baby buttons to large stuffers—can help ward off breast cancer (J Nutr, 2001; 131: 3288–93; Cancer Res, 2006; 66: 12026–34).

Extracts of white button mush-rooms (Agaricus bisporus) can sup-press oestrogen production, which plays a major role in breast cancer. Crimini (including portabella) mush-rooms have similar actions. One active ingredient in these mushrooms is conjugated linoleic acid, a well-known anticancer agent.

Although mushrooms cannot treat breast cancer, say the researchers, eating about 100 g/day of white mush-rooms may act as a preventative in postmenopausal women; non-meno-pausal women can have a lower intake and still benefit.

Diabetes

Mushrooms have shown impressive activity against diabetes. In mice, mai-take significantly reduced blood sugar (Biol Pharm Bull, 1994; 17: 1106–10), and doctors at New York Medical College have found that a daily dose of 1000 mg of maitake in patients with severe type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diab-etes can permanently normalize blood sugar levels (Diabetic Med, 2001; 18: 1010).

Reishi—known in China as lingzhi, the ‘plant of immortality’—can also reduce blood glucose in diabetic patients (Int J Med Mushr, 2005; 7: 111–8). Moreover, reishi can prevent or delay diabetic kidney problems—albeit in mice, so it may not apply to humans (J Asian Nat Prod Res, 2006; 8: 705–11).

Yet another mushroom helpful in diabetes is Agaricus blazei Murill (ABM). In a randomized, double-blind study of 72 patients with type 2 diab-etes, those receiving ABM extract—1500 mg/day for 12 weeks—had an improved insulin resistance compared with those given a placebo (J Altern Complement Med, 2007; 13: 97–102).

The effect was attributed to increas-ed adiponectin, a hormone that regu-lates fat and sugar metabolism.

AIDS and HIV

Mushrooms can even help HIV/AIDS patients to improve their immune function. In a controlled trial of 100 HIV patients, lentinan taken with the drug didanosine (ddI) increased levels of CD4 cells—among the immune system’s main defenses—more than with ddI alone (J Med, 1995; 26: 193–207).

What’s more, according to its Japanese inventors, a patented beta-glucan extract of maitake known as the ‘MD-Fraction’ is the most effective of all the known anti-HIV polysaccharides and is as powerful as the drug AZT (Altern Med Rev, 2001; 6: 48–60). In one long-term study, the MD-Fraction was given to 35 HIV-positive patients for 360 days. Although the results were mixed, 85 per cent of the patients reported an increased sense of well-being in terms of symptoms and secondary HIV-related diseases. The MD-Fraction appears to work by direct inhibition of HIV and stimulation of the body’s own natural defences against HIV, rendering the patient less vulnerable to disease (Mycoscience, 2000; 41: 293–5).

Coriolus and reishi mushrooms may also have a place in fighting HIV (Life Sci, 1997; 60: PL383–7; Phytochemistry, 1998; 49: 1651–7).

Mushroom supplements

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The medicinal properties of mush-rooms are full of possibilities, but the research is still in its early stages. Nevertheless, there are a number of commercially available mushroom products already on the shelves.

Look for liquid products rather than powdered (dried) supplements as, in general, they are thought to be more bioavailable (readily taken up by the body). However, there appears to have been no systematic attempt to evaluate this claim scientifically. Liquid extracts may just be more concentrated than the powdered ones.

There is, however, evidence to suggest that using whole mushrooms or mushroom extracts may be more beneficial than taking its isolated components such as polysaccharides. According to scientists from the University of California, whole mush-rooms contain a number of important active ingredients that may play a synergistic role against disease (Exp Biol Med, 2004; 229: 393–406).

Finally, it’s worth remembering that medicinal and culinary mushrooms are often one and the same, so many of
the benefits of mushrooms can be had simply by making them a routine part of your diet. Recent research by the
US Department of Agriculture has discovered that most nutrients in raw mushrooms are fully retained when cooked, while others are retained at levels of between 80 and 95 per cent (Nutrient Data on Mushrooms Updated / August 18, 2006 / News from the USDA Agricultural Research Service).

Functional Fungi


A polysaccharide from shiitake has demonstrated benefit in chronic hepatitis sufferers. LEM (Lentinula edodes mycelia) protects the liver, improves liver function and helps produce antibodies to hepatitis B (J Beijing Med University, 1987; 19: 93–5; Gasteroenterol Jpn, 1987; 22: 459–64; Kantansui, 1987; 14: 327–35).

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