The Benefits Of Maitake Mushrooms For Your Health
Maitake mushrooms grow in the forests of Europe, Canada, some parts of eastern America and Asia. It grows in clumps, sometimes weighing as much as a hundred pounds, at the base of tree roots and stumps. These organic mushrooms are indigenous to the northern part of Japan and have been prized as an edible mushroom with a palatable meaty taste.
It has been recorded for over a thousand years that a number of mushrooms can help the human body to recuperate from and even help to avoid some medical disorders. They are highly valued in some areas of the world and Chinese medicine believes strongly in their many medical benefits. You will find early medical texts from Japan and China which make note of these benefits as well as the healing properties of the different kinds of mushrooms.
During the first part of the 1980’s, an expert mycologist and professor of microbiology was researching the medicinal properties of many different mushrooms. Originally, the time was generally spent on studying the medicinal shiitake mushrooms, but when the research began to show that the maitake mushrooms had a different molecular structure, one that showed a great amount of anti-tumor activity, the study began to shift toward the maitake.
The maitake mushroom also offers a further unique characteristic. If taken orally, it has the best proportion of efficacy of all of the other mushrooms used for healing purposes. Before that time, clinical trials had established that products such as the reishi mushroom extract were ideally given by injection. It was at that juncture that the decision was made to concentrate even more on the investigation of the maitake mushroom variety. The extract is made from a particular strain of the maitake, without the use of any form of strong solvents and with no form of preservatives added.
Now the extract from maitake mushrooms is being used in Japan and other areas of the world, as a very popular cancer and related adjuvant therapy. It has also shown promise in the treatment of weight loss, diabetes, malaria, hypertension, high triglycerides and cholesterol, HIV, chronic fatigue syndrome, along with other chronic type viral infections. There are a few basic ways that these medicinal mushrooms and their extracts can help to fight cancer. They slow down or stop the growth of tumors, they help in the prevention of metastasis, they work well along with chemotherapy to help reduce adverse side effects such as nausea and pain, and they help to protect the healthy cells from becoming cancerous.
Medicinal mushrooms are experiencing renewed popularity for their ability to help with numerous health conditions. If you don’t know the difference between a shiitake mushroom and a cordyceps mushroom, and what each of them can do for you, visit the Medicinal Mushrooms site to find out!
