while others can kill us. However, even the mushrooms that don’t harm humans have a
potential to kill human cells: that is, human cancer cells. Research shows that the cute fungal
foodstuff we call mushrooms have potent chemicals in them that are highly lethal to cancer
cells.
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Known in the common tongue as penny bun, this mushroom’s secret agent name against
cancer is Boletus edulis.
Researchers studied the effect of taking the chemicals found in penny bun and giving them
to two human colon cancer cell lines, LS180 and HT-29. To the delight of the scientists, the
chemicals extracted from penny bun caused the DNA of the colon cancer cells to break
apart. The mushroom chemicals turned on genes that tell the cancer cell to self-destruct,
while also turning off genes that told the cancer cells to repair themselves.
Previous studies showed that penny bun had no toxic effects on normal human colon cells.
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Breast cancer has a less aggressive form that responds to hormone therapy, such as
Tamoxifen. But it also has an aggressive form that is resistant to hormone therapy because
this form does not have a protein called the estrogen receptor-alpha (ER). The more
aggressive form, referred to as ER-negative breast cancer, requires different drugs than ER-
positive breast cancer.
The good news is that the mushroom called glistening inkcap, or mica inkcap, contains
chemicals that kill both types of breast cancer. Known to scientists as Coprinellus micaceus,
glistening inkcap causes breast cancer cells to quickly die. The higher the dose of mushroom
chemicals given, the slower the cancer cells grow and the faster they die. These effects
occurred regardless of whether the breast cancer had the ER protein. Take that, resistant
cancer!
Cortesia De Mushroom of medicine, EBook. page 24, 25.
By Basmati.
gracias
