Mushrooms & Cancer

About

Instagram

YouTube

Disclaimer

›

›

›

2 Dec 2020

Mushrooms are cancer protective!

Dr Michael Greger

Articles by Dr Greger:

(2013) Why Less Breast Cancer in Asia? Excerpts:

Given the intriguing mushroom experiments, researchers asked a thousand breast cancer patients how many mushrooms they ate. Then they asked the same question to a thousand healthy women who they tried to match to the cancer patients as closely as possible—same age, height, weight, exercise, smoking status, etc. Based on those answers they calculated that women who averaged at least a certain daily serving size of mushrooms appeared to drop their odds of getting breast cancer 64%! What was that average serving size? Half of a mushroom a day.
Who eats half a mushroom? Well, that was averaged over a month. So compared to women who didn’t regularly eat any mushrooms, those who ate just 15 a month appeared to dramatically lower their risk of breast cancer. Similar protection was found for dried mushrooms.

Combining mushroom consumption with green tea—sipping a half teabag’s worth of green tea every day along with eating that half a mushroom—was associated with nearly a 90% drop in breast cancer odds.
(2013) Mushrooms for Breast Cancer Prevention
(2012) The Most Anti-Inflammatory Mushroom

(2012) Why Do Asian Women Have Less Breast Cancer?

(3 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Mushrooms, green tea, and soy consumption may decrease breast cancer risk, but how many mushrooms, how much green tea, and what's the best soy strategy?"

(2012) Breast Cancer vs Mushrooms

(2 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Researchers pit plain white mushrooms against breast cancer cells in vitro to measure aromatase activity, and estimate how many mushrooms women may want to strive to include in their daily diet." Excerpts:

"If you remember, plain, cheap, convenient white mushrooms appeared able to outsmart breast cancer cells that try to make their own estrogen, by crippling the enzyme tumors use to make it. But, this was based on placental tissue samples."

"Now that we know it may work, what's the required dose? I mean, how many mushrooms do you have to eat? Maybe it's some, you know, ridiculous amount? Based on these studies, the consumption of just five mushrooms a day may be sufficient to suppress breast tumor growth."

(2011) Breast Cancer Prevention: Which Mushroom is Best?

(2 mins) Transcript. This video identifies the common white mushroom (the bigger ones) as best! [Among wood ear, crimini, oyster, Italian brown, enoki, button, stuffing, shiitake, chanterelle and portobello.]

(2013) Why Do Asian Women Have Less Breast Cancer?

(3 mins) Transcript. How much drop in breast cancer risk may we get with soy, green tea and mushrooms?

(2011) Vegetables vs Breast Cancer

(3 mins) Transcript. An interesting video worth watching! Mushrooms again!

(2021) White Button Mushrooms for Prostate Cancer

(6 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "What can reishi mushrooms, shiitake mushroom extracts, and whole powdered white mushrooms do for cancer patients?"

(2021) Medicinal Mushrooms for Cancer Survival

(5 mins) Transcript. Dr Greger's summary: "Did the five randomized controlled trials of reishi mushrooms in cancer patients show benefits in terms of tumor response rate, survival time, or quality of life?"

Dr Shireen Kassam

In her article, The Top Science Papers of 2021 supporting plant-based nutrition (2021), Dr Shireen Kassam explains:

This year we have seen pretty convincing evidence of the true power of consuming mushrooms on a regular basis. The study highlighted brought together data from 17 observational studies, including 19,732 cases of cancer. Most of the studies were from Asian countries. The results showed that compared to those eating the least (less than once a week), those eating the most mushrooms (more than 5 times a week) had a 44% reduced risk of cancer, with benefits for breast cancer being most apparent.

Dr Kassam is referring to Higher Mushroom Consumption Is Associated with Lower Risk of Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies by Ba et al, Advances in Nutrition, Vol 12, Issue 5, Sep 2021, pages 1691-1704.

gurmeet@gmail.com