The Benefits of Medicinal Mushrooms with Lee Carroll: Rational Wellness Podcast 374

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Lee Carroll discusses The Benefits of Medicinal Mushrooms with Dr. Ben Weitz.

In this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast, Dr. Ben Weitz welcomes Lee Carroll, the Chief Medical Herbalist of Real Mushrooms, for an in-depth discussion on the health benefits of medicinal mushrooms. They delve into the properties of various mushrooms, including Reishi, Shiitake, Turkey Tail, Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, and Chaga, and their roles in supporting immune health, fighting cancer, cardiovascular health, and cognitive function. Lee Carroll also explains the science behind the synergy of mushroom compounds, the importance of consuming mushrooms regularly, and the specifics of mushroom supplements. Don’t miss this informative conversation on the power of medicinal mushrooms and their potential impact on your health.

[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]

 

Podcast Highlights

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Lee Carroll is the chief medical herbalist of Real Mushrooms.  The website is RealMushrooms.com.

Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure.  Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.

 

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Podcast Transcript

Dr. Weitz:  Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates. And to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com.  Thanks for joining me and let’s jump into the podcast. Hello, Rational Wellness Podcasters.

Today, I’m excited to be having a discussion about medicinal mushrooms with Lee Carroll, the chief medical herbalist of Real Mushrooms. Medicinal mushrooms include mushrooms like Reishi, Shiitake, Turkey Tail, and Lion’s Mane.  These are mushrooms that have powerful health promoting properties, including strength in the immune system, and even the National Cancer [00:01:00] Institute has a whole detailed section on medicinal mushrooms for fighting cancer. Turkey tail. Reishi, Shiitake, and Maitake are four of the mushrooms most known for strengthening the immune system to fight cancer and infections.  Lion’s Mane is a popular mushroom used for cognitive health and you see it in a lot of brain formulas. Cordyceps is another medicinal mushroom that’s known to support the kidneys and the lungs. It’s often included in adrenal formulas and also has benefits for sports performance. Chaga helps with digestion and skin as well as with immune function.  So those are a few of the medicinal mushrooms that we’ll probably include in our discussion today. So Lee, thank you so much for joining us today.

Lee Carroll: My pleasure, Ben. It’s lovely to be here.

Dr. Weitz: So, how did you end up becoming the Chief Medical Herbalist for Real Mushrooms?

Lee Carroll: That’s a good place to start.

Dr. Weitz: How did you end up knee deep in fungus?

Lee Carroll: I have had a long career in herbal medicine. And when COVID happened in early 2020, I was working for a small company in Northern California, and I got the opportunity to develop a range of, of functional mushroom products using Namex extracts. And that was kind of like the segue I realized, you know, in 30 plus years, I hadn’t really focused on mushrooms much.  And then I fell in love with them and started developing educational materials for healthcare professionals around that. And I just haven’t stopped since. It’s just, there’s so much to learn. And, and, uh, there’s so much to discuss with mushrooms. They’re really underrated in the, in the modern clinic.

Dr. Weitz: Right. So let’s get into the science of medicinal mushrooms and how they can help us promote greater health. So why don’t we start with one of the properties that mushrooms are known for, which is immune health. Perhaps you can explain why mushrooms are beneficial for that.

Lee Carroll: Sure. So mushrooms as a group fall into a different kingdom of life to plants.  So when we’re thinking about the way that fungi interact with human biology, there’s a whole different set of chemistry that interacts with the human body. And if you go back a thousand million years, fungi and, and animals, humans have a common ancestor. So we split off from a common ancestor.  So we’ve got shared biological features. So [00:04:00] cholesterol in our cell walls is similar to ergosterol and fungal So there’s a lot of intracellular machinery. And then, as those two lineages interacted with each other originally, like in the primordial kind of ocean, fungi were needing to survive and eat food, so they would attack animals.  This is kind of like the highlight. So fungi and animals have been kind of going at it, you know, for millions and millions of years. And fungi have got these unique, signature molecules on their exterior cell wall, which are beta glucans to a lesser extent, alpha glucans, a few other unique molecules. So animal biology has evolved to recognize those patterns.

And when those patterns are recognized, it engages the immune system. So, if it’s a pathogenic fungus, it can cause disease. And humans are so resistant to fungal infections that it’s not a very common thing. So most of us are familiar with tinea and athlete’s foot, jock itch, dandruff, for example.  So when a human encounters a non pathogenic fungus as a mushroom, say shiitake or lion’s mane, those beta glucan signatures are still there.  They don’t represent any pathogenic threat because they don’t have that capacity, but they talk to the immune system in a very similar way to the pathogenic fungus.  And the message that the beta glucans send is to tell the immune system to be more vigilant, to be more accurate in your responses, to have populations of cell types that are more appropriate for the place where they hang out. So it might be, if it’s cordyceps, it might be the population of surface immune cells in the lungs, for example.

So this is driven by very highly specific receptors. that are, some of them are broadly tuned to receive all sorts of different messages from different sources, but some of them are very highly specific, and they’re tuned just to receive the messages from fungi, and mushrooms. So when we engage in the behavior of eating mushrooms, And we should dissect mushrooms out into their own kingdom of life.  And they should be a separate food group when we eat mushrooms on a regular basis, we’re educating our immune system to be healthier, to be calmer, to be more responsive, and to be more accurate at removing the neuro plastic cells that otherwise shouldn’t be there like neo plastic cells, for example.  It’s a bit more complicated than that. There’s a bit of fermentation that goes on in the gut. So short chain fatty acids play a bit of a role, but that kind of story is like the underpinning of the main reason why we should be eating mushrooms more frequently.

Dr. Weitz: You mentioned neoplastic, so that refers to cancer.  And which mushrooms are best for helping us fight cancer? I’ve heard a lot about turkey tail. I’ve talked to integrative cancer experts who recommend using various forms of mushrooms and mushroom extracts for fighting cancer.  Some have recommended Turkey Tail, some have recommended Reishi, a mixture, rotating them.  There’s extracts, like there’s one popular one known as AHCC, and I remember for a while there was one called Maitake D Fraction that was really big. What’s your take on which mushrooms are best for fighting cancer? Is it better to use or to rotate them or use a number of them?

Lee Carroll: It’s a tricky question that one.  Um, the first, the first thing I’d say is that if a person consumes mushrooms regularly as part of their diet or takes a supplement every day, a good quality supplement, you know, like a, like what Real Mushrooms offers, then the risk of developing cancer can be reduced. Uh, and there’s, there’s really good epidemiology data that backs that up.  Cancers of all types, uh, prostate cancer in men, breast cancer in women, colon cancer. So, um, in terms of our health, you know, modern humans aren’t that smart really because, you know, we don’t engage in the behaviors that are [00:09:00] preventative. So prevention is kind of optimal. So we’ve got to get more into having them as part of our regular diet.

If you have cancer and you’re looking to, you know, use natural supplements to kind of, you know, support the fight against that cancer. Mushrooms on their own don’t have great evidence to fight the cancer. What they do have is great evidence as part of conventional therapies. So when, when patients are undergoing treatments, mushrooms, across the board [mushrooms] make the patient more vital and they’re more able to cope with the rigor of the drug that they’re receiving because many of the drugs are really toxic. I’ve got a breast cancer patient at the moment. She’s taking a turkey tail extract and she was suffering badly as a result of the Taxol that she was having weekly.  And I just gave her turkey tail and a bioavailable curcumin. And over the course of four months, the oncologist said, well, I’ve never seen this drug work so well.  And her health improved significantly. She was, the complications and the side effects of that drug weren’t as great.  So it’s a little bit complicated and it’s beyond the time that we’ve got here, but when you have, when you have a particular cancer, you’ve got to go with the evidence.

Dr. Weitz: Oh, yeah. Look, I’m not suggesting that people should not get chemo or radiation or you know, targeted therapies.  I’m just suggesting from a integrative perspective, we want to help them support that person’s fight and help their immune system, which it needs to be a big participant. A lot of times these drugs, unfortunately, at the same time as they fight cancer, they end up suppressing the immune system.

Lee Carroll: Yeah, they do. So, and there’s, In China, many of the beta glucans have been purified and turned into drugs, and there’s about 30 of them. And they do, they’re ideally suited for all particular different types of cancers, so, broad brush, you can’t go wrong using Turkey Tail as an adjunct. You can’t go wrong using Reishi as an adjunct.  Uh, they’re very safe places to go. In terms of helping the patient and some of the drugs have their efficacy improved when they, when the treatment includes a mushroom. So the, some of the more specific drugs work a whole lot better under those conditions.

Dr. Weitz: Okay. Let’s talk about some of the other benefits of mushrooms.  I understand some mushrooms are beneficial for the cardiovascular system.

Lee Carroll: Yep. So Reishi probably gets the best, um, kind of track record there, although the evidence doesn’t really support it, but the, the tradition does. We just, the clinical trials that have been done with Reishi just haven’t been done very well, haven’t been done long enough, haven’t been done with quality materials. So, you know, if you’re an evident, if you’re on the evidence based end of the spectrum, it can be a bit challenging. But if we, but beta glucans play a role in cardiovascular health as well, but Reishi Hass got molecules called triterpenes that are very bitter.

And these triterpenes have got a structure that can interact with human physiology. The structure of those terpenes is similar to the triterpenes in a herb like Korean ginseng or bitter melon or astragalus for example. So those, those triterpenes, when you consume them, the first place they go is your vascular system.  And then they get, some of them get consumed by your liver, but then they end up in circulation. And the triterpenes get taken up by the endothelial cells in the vascular system. And much of the cardiovascular disease has its origins in dysfunctional, um, endothelial cell function. And the inner layers the intima, for example, they get stressed as well.  So in animal studies, the triterpenes can mitigate against the stress and the dysfunction in those cells and allow them to be more functional and healthy. So you get less cardiovascular disease. A curious thing that has not been studied is that those molecules are really very bitter and bitter receptors aren’t just in the mouth.  There’s bitter receptors expressed everywhere in the body and humans have 29 different bitter receptors and they perform very, very highly specific roles. And the heart and the vasculature express 21 of those 25 receptors and there isn’t one piece of research investigating how bitter molecules influence the functioning of the heart or the vascular system.  So it’s my theory that really good quality extracts that are very bitter are going to be more effective at supporting the cardiovascular system via the endothelial cells and the other, the original stuff that I mentioned, but also this unexplored area of bitterness and how it plays a role in cardiovascular health.

Dr. Weitz: Interesting. I was also reading an article about oyster mushrooms that have certain compounds that actually help to lower cholesterol.

Lee Carroll: Yeah. So that’s, that’s the other side of the equation and many mushrooms. Shiitake and oyster mushrooms kind of stand up as the dominant ones, they have minor influences over the levels of LDL, HDL, the amount of oxidized LDL.  And, cause that’s the real problem is how much oxidative stress there is in the bloodstream. So mushrooms help to mitigate against that as well.

Dr. Weitz: To get the most benefit out of eating mushrooms, is it better to cook them or eat them raw? 

Lee Carroll: It’s better to cook them. The button mushroom and crimini and portobello, they grow in cow manure, so it’s not a good idea to eat them raw because you might be getting a little bit of, you know, manure in your salad.  But mush, because mushrooms are 

Dr. Weitz: Oh, I thought they all grew on manure.

Lee Carroll: No, no, some, some will grow on wood. Okay. Some will grow on, you know, other types of substrates. Okay. But I think the real reason, the most important thing is that mushrooms have got a unique biology and if we want to extract the beta glucans and the other active constituents from the really robust cell walls that exist in these, in these organisms, then they need to be cooked, boiled is optimal.  So, you know, good quality extracts, processed using heat for a couple of hours and that gives the best extraction of all of the different phytochemistry and these things are very stable in heat. So, my rule at home is, and it’s a bit harder when you’re cooking because you’re on a time frame, you don’t want to spend all day in the kitchen.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah, who’s going to cook them for a couple of hours?

Lee Carroll: So, I tell people when you’re frying them or cooking them at home, 10 or 15 minutes at least to do some work at breaking them down. And the smaller the particle size, the more benefit you’re going to get. If you just, if you don’t chew your food well, and many people don’t, then if you’re swallowing large pieces of mushroom, they don’t get digested in the gut.  So they, they get a little bit of fermentation by bacteria, but we don’t have any enzymes or acid doesn’t break it down. So the smaller you chop them up the healthier it’s going to be, particularly for your large intestine.

Dr. Weitz: That’s, that’s what I do. I often have mushrooms with my eggs in the morning and I chop them up and  my favorites are shiitake and lion’s mane.

Lee Carroll: Yeah. Oh, that’s a beautiful breakfast. Yeah. I’d be all over that one as well.

Dr. Weitz: Um, [00:18:00] tell us about this compound ergothioneine. I’m sure I’m probably not pronouncing it correctly. That’s good. Yeah. And how it helps with, uh, cardiovascular health, with healthy aging, with brain health, with

Lee Carroll: Yeah, that’s, that’s a really fascinating topic that ergothioneine gets its name from the ergot fungus.  Uh, it was discovered back in 1909. So it was given the name ergothioneine because it’s a derivative of an amino acid.

Dr. Weitz: Is it now where like LSD came from?

Lee Carroll: And that’s where LSD came from. Yeah, and it’s also where ergotamine and other, other alkaloids came from that get used as vasoconstrictors and used in childbirth, et cetera.  The Chinese were using it for thousands of years. I think

Dr. Weitz: migraines.

Lee Carroll: Yeah, so ergothioneine is a derivative of an amino acid, and it’s technically a thiol, which makes it in the [00:19:00] same category as glutathione. So the role that it plays in the human body is the role of an intracellular, antioxidant. But it’s a very unique molecule and there isn’t any other metabolite in the body like it.  It’s totally unique. And just like vitamin C has got vitamin C transporters to bring vitamin C into the body. Vitamin C relies on glucose transporters to get into the cells. Uh, the kidney has got transporters to moderate the loss of vitamin C. So if you, if you’ve starved of it, then you’ll get better reabsorption.  So ergothienine has the same aspects to it. There’s, there’s very highly specific transporter proteins that bring that ergothienine from the diet into the bloodstream. And then many of the cells in the body have got transporters that are pretty much exclusive to [00:20:00] ergothioneine into the cells. And then the kidney doesn’t ever let any go.  It avidly retains any loss that might, you know, make it through to the kidney. So, um, that, that imparts upon it like a really high level of biological value, but Modern science has only worked out how important ergothioneine is just in the last 10 or 15 years since those transporters have been discovered.  One of the problems with managing human health is that the modern world creates It’s more oxidative stress than our kind of evolutionary capacity can handle where you’re exposed to all of the chemicals that are in our environment, you know, all of the psychosocial stress, heavy metals, all that sort of stuff.  So ergothioneine’s role really fits into supporting the modern person in a very highly specific way, because it sits at the boundary between intracellular oxidative stress and intracellular inflammation.

Dr. Weitz: So But yet, unlike glutathione, we don’t produce ergothioneine,

Lee Carroll: right? We have to get it from the diet.  Yeah. So it, it’s like a vitamin. It doesn’t quite meet the definition of a vitamin because a, a vitamin has, there has to be a deficiency disease associated with it. And in humans, it’s almost impossible to Um, create a deficiency because ergothioneine only comes from fungi and some soil bacteria and plants take it up from the, from the fungi and the soil bacteria.  So when you eat plants, you get 10 to 100 times less of the ergothioneine that you get if you consume a fungus. So, ergothioneines, this is Once you dive into the biology of it, um, it’s really quite fascinating. So when a, [00:22:00] when a cell experiences stress, so let’s just use the most simple example of someone exercising.

So the mitochondria are making more energy, there’s a bit of leakage from the, the, um, the, the electron chain of energy production. And so the, the amount of, of, um, free radicals increases in the cell, um, as a result of that. And the cell has got natural mechanisms to cope with that. So some of those, um, reactive oxygen species will interact with, um, NRF2, which is pretty, you know, popular and, and understood now.

And then that will engage, you know, more antioxidant defenses to cope with that stress. But you reach a point at which the glutathione in the cell, which is, you know, reacting with those. entities, it starts to get depleted and it takes a little bit of time to [00:23:00] regenerate glutathione. So when oxidative stress is ebbing and flowing in the cell, when glutathione is low, Um, ergothioneine steps in and plays a, plays the defensive backup role of being the antioxidant that allows the glutathione time to regenerate.

And then ergo has got this unique biology. So as the cell webbed, um, waxes and wanes in terms of its stress, the, the pH goes up and down. as a result of the, you know, the, the free radicals. When the free radicals are high, the, the, the cells are a bit more acidic. So ergothioneine, when the cell is acidic, it goes into its active form.

When the cell’s at its healthy normal pH, it’s in its inactive form. So as an antioxidant, um, it’s a very intelligent, adaptive mechanism that supports the cells. When things get tough, but it can’t auto [00:24:00] oxidize or cause mischief because when cells are healthy, it doesn’t, it doesn’t play a role. So it only engages in sites where there’s excessive stress.

And there are some places in the body that experience more stress and ergothioneine plays a more dominant role like in the eyes, for example, or in the liver, in the endothelial cells, ergothioneine plays a bit more of a dominant role, but it plays a role in all of the cells in the body and when we’re deficient in it, we get all sorts of age related diseases.

Dr. Weitz: And are mushrooms the only way to get ergothioneine?

Lee Carroll: They’re the only way to get, um, healthy levels of it. And humans need, uh, you know, three or four or five milligrams a day of this stuff. And the, the epidemiology that’s been done is, it’s not fully complete, but it suggests that the American diet, uh, on average [00:25:00] only has about one milligram a day.

Dr. Weitz: And I saw a paper where patients with Dementia or diminishing cognitive faculties seem to have lower ergothionine levels.

Lee Carroll: Yeah, and we don’t have a commercial test for it at the moment, so it’s still like a laboratory research tool, but I think we’re only a year or two away from having a diagnostic test that people can take that will say, if your ergothionine is below this level, and that number hasn’t been quite been set yet, um, you’re at a significantly increased risk of um, neurodegenerative disease, so mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, a bunch of other ones, um, and macular degeneration has got kind of like the highest association, but cardiovascular disease is in there.

Dr. Weitz: Macular degeneration, interesting, and that’s related to, [00:26:00] there’s some relationship between that and Alzheimer’s as well.

Lee Carroll: Yeah. And it’s, uh, there’s a vascular component to it and it’s, it’s to do with, you know, cells that can’t cope with the, with the stress that they’re under. So, you know, a neuron that has got too much inflammation, um, the, the, the enzymes that cleave the, the amyloid proteins go a little bit crazy.  And instead of making a healthy protein, they make an amyloid beta protein that can build up. So it’s all, it’s not a bad. Reducing, it’s not about targeting the, the, the amyloid protein in this case, it’s about reducing the inflammation to stop it being produced. You’ve got to go to the source, which is where all of our natural health, kind of philosophies take us.  And ergothioneine is the missing link in that bridge between how cells control their, their stress. and how they engage [00:27:00] their inflammatory responses. And Ergothenia has got this really interesting relationship with inflammation. So as, as the inflammatory environment increases, that engages Nucleofactor Kappa B, which, you know, many of us will be familiar with.

So as Nucleofactor Kappa B starts to get engaged, the ergotransporter proteins get increased in the cell to bring more ergothioneine in. And then as the inflammation starts to ebb, the ergothioneine transporters get removed. So ergothioneine sort of sits in the middle of, of managing stress and managing inflammation.  And then it’s, it’s uncontrolled inflammation that then leads to all of these downstream consequences, including cancer.

Dr. Weitz: And from what I read, the mushrooms that are highest in ergothioneine are Oyster, Porcini, and I think Shiitake.

Lee Carroll: Yeah. Yeah. You’ve done your homework well, Ben. You could put lion’s mane in there as well.  Okay. The yellow oyster represents the most easily accessible highest source.

Dr. Weitz: The yellow

Lee Carroll: oyster.

Dr. Weitz: Okay. Is it, does it have a yellow color? Is it easy to identify? Yeah. That’s,

Lee Carroll: that’s where it gets its name from. It’s this beautiful bright yellow color. Okay. Real Mushrooms has a, has a supplement called Ergo Plus, which is made using the yellow oyster.  So each capsule gives you a five milligram dose.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. Tell us about the stoned ape theory.

Lee Carroll: Well, that’s good timing with that question because it, I came up with that theory, um, as a result of my research into ergothionine. So Terence McKenna, who [00:29:00] was, you know, famous psychonaut and proponent of, you know, psychedelic, exploration and therapies, came up with this idea that,  it psilocybin mushrooms, um, by early humans that facilitated the rapid increase in the size of our brains a couple of hundred thousand years ago that psilocybin allowed for enhanced communication and the development of language and complex kind of problem solving skills. So when you look at the arc of ergothionine, it, it plays a role in neurogenesis and There’s many, many ape species, uh, you know, and, and primate species consume mushrooms as, as do many animals.

So, the essence of the, of the, the gourmet ape theory is that Um, there’s archaeological [00:30:00] evidence, the archaeologists scrape the teeth of archaeological specimens, and then they look at them under microscopes, and they, in some cases, they can get DNA out of them. So, 16, 000 years ago, The specimens from Spain were consuming vast quantities of boletes, so porcini, um, and vast quantities of agaricus mushroom.

For example, other species, other specimens have been, uh, looked at that are 48, 000 years old and they were consuming, um, Schizophyllum commune, which is a medicinal edible mushroom from China that’s still used today. Um, and Copranopsis, the Shaggy End Cap. So, there’s very scant evidence because mushrooms don’t survive.

Um, but the, the, the fact is that it’s very likely that modern, early humans Um, eight vast [00:31:00] quantities of mushrooms and the ergothionine content in the mushrooms will have played a role, um, throughout the evolutionary process and guided the way that, um, brains have developed. And when you look at Um, Ergotheanine’s role in cognitive function, that the TRACB receptor gets a lot of attention, and that’s a neurotrophin receptor that receives the BDNF signals.

It’s also a receptor that psilocybin binds into. Some of the molecules of lion’s mane might bind into that receptor as well. And when, when that receptor receives its signal, then the downstream intracellular messages, kind of housekeeping messages and house maintenance messages. So it might be Hey, you don’t have enough synapses, you’ve got to have more synapses, or your cytoskeletal arrangement internally is not quite optimal, or you’ve, you know, the [00:32:00] biological functioning of the cell might not be optional, optimal.  So ergothionine plays a role in making that, um, TRACB receptor, um, more able to deliver the messages via enhancing the intracellular domain of that receptor. So I think that, um, the human development, um, has in part been shaped by our consumption of mushrooms.

Dr. Weitz: It’s interesting. Other theories have explained that growth of the brain based on the fact that we started consuming meat and got concentrated  calories. Other people have talked about the consumption of fish and the omega 3 fats as being important for that, but 

Lee Carroll: And all of that is true but because ergothionine’s such a recent thing, um, it hasn’t been factored into [00:33:00] Those types of theories and mushrooms in general haven’t been factored into a, paleolithic diet.  So when, when researchers come up with what they think early humans ate, A, it’s very variable when you look at the data, depends on where you lived, where the fossils come from, but researchers look at collagen. And they look at the carbon and nitrogen isotopes, and that gives them an assessment of how much amino acid and therefore protein was consumed in those diets.  None of those researchers have ever considered that early humans ate mushrooms. And the little bit of work that’s been done shows that the, the isotope signatures, the carbon and nitrogen signatures that get reflected. in the collagen, um, can’t be distinguished between protein from animal sources or mushroom sources.

So the fact that we’ve got this archaeological evidence showing [00:34:00] that early humans ate vast quantities of mushrooms when they’re available probably, um, means that our Ideas around modern diets, um, haven’t included mushrooms because it hasn’t been factored in. And the more mushrooms we can include in our diet, the healthier we’ll be.

And there’s, there’s some really good evidence to show that if you can just swap two meat meals a week out of your diet and replace them with mushrooms. It has significant impact on your risk of diabetes and obesity and metabolic syndrome, for example. Interesting. So the gourmet ag theories are kind of broad Iraq.

And I think that, um, you know, the consumption of mushrooms going back, you know, probably millions of years, Um, not just the last couple of hundred thousand has really kind of shaped, um, you know, the way that, that human evolution, particularly from a nervous system point of view has transpired.

Dr. Weitz: Of course, some mushrooms [00:35:00] are poisonous and I wouldn’t want to be the guy in a primitive tribe who gets to test out the new mushroom.

Lee Carroll: Yeah, it’d be an awful, awful way to go.

Dr. Weitz: If I was considering taking, oh, let’s just follow up a little bit on the brain health, um, what is it about, um, what is it about, um, Lion’s Mane that makes it such a powerful factor for brain health?

Lee Carroll: Okay, that’s a great question. Can, can I start by saying that the consumption of all culinary mushrooms, when they’re done over the course of years, so, you know, two years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, um, the epidemiology of that tells us that just one serve of mushroom a week can improve cognitive function in healthy people as they age.  [00:36:00] And higher serving sizes, so when you get up to 7, 8, 9 serves of mushrooms a week. So a serve is about half an ounce of fresh mushroom. So not crazy amounts. Um, when you get up to those higher servings in a week, the risk of, um, developing neurocognitive challenges, you know, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, mild cognitive impairment, the risk decreases by about 75 to 80 percent.

So there’s something about mushrooms in general that is really quite significant, uh, in terms of how this plays out, but at the moment all of the attention is on lion’s mane and lion’s mane special for a couple of reasons. So, um, lion’s mane’s got beta glucans, they play a role, um, it’s got ergothionine, And at reasonably high levels, it’s kind of in the high category.

So that plays a role. And it’s got secondary [00:37:00] metabolites. And the metabolites are different between the fruiting body and the mycelium. And the fruiting body is where the tradition comes from. So the, the tradition around Lion’s Mane having these effects. was to do with people consuming the mushroom. So there’s the intersection of those three different aspects of the chemistry, which I believe have a synergistic effect, uh, which promote, um, you know, the optimization of how the brain works.

And in the modern world, It’s pretty hard to avoid people being reductionist. They want to hone in on just what is the one thing that’s the most important. You can’t do that in biology, and you definitely can’t do it when you’re talking about, you know, functional mushrooms and, and, um, natural medicines.

So Lion’s Mane, the beta glucans, um, get fermented in the gut [00:38:00] and beta glucans get converted into short chain fatty acids. And there’s really good evidence to show that. Um, any, any short chain fatty acids, uh, when they’re produced in the gut are going to have in, in, uh, improvements in brain health. So synaptogenesis improves BDNF as you know, is the driver of that, for example, certain areas of the brain can be increased in size.

Ergotheanine plays a role as I was just describing earlier. Um, it helps manage the oxidative stress in the brain and it allows the TRACB receptor, at least, but possibly many other receptors that we haven’t been explored yet to be more functional, to deliver better messages. And then you’ve got the secondary metabolites.

So in the fruiting body, the mushroom, um, it’s harrisonones, um, which, uh, interact with various receptors in the body to modulate the behavior of neuronal tissue and maybe increase nerve growth factor. What was

Dr. Weitz: that? What was [00:39:00] that term? Harrison mounds.

Lee Carroll: Hericinones. It’s a type of diterpene. So it’s a, it’s a class of molecule that’s quite unique to lion’s mane.  

Dr. Weitz: How do you spell that?

Lee Carroll: H E R I C E N O N E S, I think.

Dr. Weitz: Okay, cool.

Lee Carroll: So when you, when you get that cocktail of, uh, chemistry, um, at the right dose. And the clinical trials tell us that you need, um, three to five grams of the mushroom a day to move the dial on people that have got cognitive impairment. Okay. If you do it, if you do lion’s mane regularly, um, and you don’t have cognitive decline, one gram a day over the course of your life will, um, you know, prevent cognitive decline from happening and keep your cognition.

Dr. Weitz: Now, approximately how much [00:40:00] lion’s mane mushroom is in a gram? Like, like if you had a, um, a fist? Amount would, would that be a gram more? Yeah, if you’re eating fresh.

Lee Carroll: If you’re eating fresh lines mane. Right. Um, uh, it’s about 90% water. So if you had 10 ounces of lions mane, you’d have one ounce of dried mushroom.  Oh wow. You’d have 28 grams, so you’d have a whole month’s worth. So you could eat just a little bit every day. Okay. But the sort of capsules that, that people have access to, so the. The Real Mushroom Lion’s Mane Capsules, um, they’re 500 milligrams each, so two of them gives you a gram, that’s the equivalent of 10 grams.  I see. Fresh.

Dr. Weitz: So, but for, so, one gram would be, of a quality product would be sufficient for prevention. What was the amount for a patient who [00:41:00] already has, say, mild cognitive impairment? 

Lee Carroll: The research tells us about three grams.

Dr. Weitz: Three grams. Okay.

Lee Carroll: And clearly, you know, the, the more you throw at it, the better it will be.  There’s a long list of things that, you know, a patient will do well with.

Dr. Weitz: Now, you mentioned that a lot of these ingredients are in the flowering part of the mushroom rather than the mycelium. Can you explain what the mycelium is and the difference between, specifically as it relates to mushroom supplements, the importance of the flowering body versus the mycelium?

Lee Carroll: Sure. Yeah, that’s a, that’s a really vexing question at the moment. And in every industry disruptive ideas and practices get introduced, uh, which create a lot of confusion [00:42:00] and that’s happening at the moment and has been for the last 10 years in the mushroom industry. So, Let me see if I can kind of dissect it up to make it clear for people because there’s lots of opinions and a lot of emotion around this topic when you get into public debates.

So from a traditional point of view, uh, it was only ever the mushroom or the fruiting body, um, which was used as a medicine and These, these, uh, mushrooms were mostly boiled or decocted, uh, and taken as a, as a beverage, so as a tea or as a medicine. So if we want to, um, understand the traditional use and reflect that traditional use in a modern setting, then we need to kind of stick with the tradition.

So there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of value around the mushrooms. And then there’s a huge amount of modern research to back up the traditional use of it. And there’s a huge volume of research around beta glucans. [00:43:00] And then there’s a, there’s a developing body of research around all of the other constituents that support that.

So back in the sixties, scientists realized that mushrooms are quite special. And there was a lot of focus on cancer and mushrooms are hard to grow. So they thought let’s grow the mycelium in a tank of liquid, and then we might be able to extract the, the highly specific beta glucans from that mycelium, do it more cheaply and create like a drug out of it. So when we’re talking about mycelium, that’s the like, legitimate way to make a product from mycelium. So PSK and PSP from Turkey Tail, which are kind of famous names as, as very highly specific. beta glucans with, with proteins attached. Um, that’s, that’s a legitimate way to do it.

And there’s a large volume of science to back that up. So it’s a new discovery. Um, and for a new discovery to [00:44:00] have value in a modern setting, you’ve got to have the research to back it up. So the research has been done and it’s really overwhelming and conclusive. So if you want to embrace the use of mushrooms, They’re the two aspects of mushrooms you need to use.

Dr. Weitz: Now, by the way, if you look at a mushroom, you’ll see this, uh, let’s say you look at a traditional, um, you know, white mushroom, black mushroom, uh, you’ll see this bulbous thing and then you’ll see a little stem. Is that stem, is that the mycelium?

Lee Carroll: The mycelium is inside the the substrate that is being used as the food.  So it might be in the soil. It might be in the log.

Dr. Weitz: Okay. But, but it’s not in either the stem or the bulb.

Lee Carroll: Well, we’re getting into technical territory. So let me take that out for you. So the main organism of a fungus. Um, [00:45:00] is, is made up of mycelium and that mycelium inhabits the environment that, uh, that fungi is suited to.  So it might be a decomposing log. So the purpose of that mycelium, that’s kind of like the body of the fungus. So it’s rationale for life is to survive, to eat food, and then when conditions are right, reproduce. So when the conditions are right, that, that fungus produces the fruiting body or the mushroom, and then that’s the reproductive structure.  So you’ve, and then you’ve got spores, which are kind of like, in essence, the seeds. So you’ve got those three parts. as an analogy is much more complex. So the thing that’s really confusing the supplement industry at the moment is that people grow the mycelium on brown rice or sorghum or [00:46:00] oats, and then that gets that gets dried.

No fruiting bodies may be present or there may be primordial fruiting bodies or there may be a scant number of fruiting bodies. Um, those products get dried and they get sold as if they’re a mushroom and they’re not technically a mushroom. They’re a, they’re a digested or a technical, it’s not fermented really, but it’s a processed food and the science is not conclusive yet on any of the active constituents in those products and what they do.  There’s a small amount of science to suggest that they might have some immunological benefits, which puts it into the category of the shiitake that you mentioned earlier that’s grown on brown rice. So many people are being confused at the moment and they’re buying myceliated grains or mycelium on grain thinking that they’re getting a mushroom.

And you’ve got really slick [00:47:00] marketing campaigns that are behind these products. And if you want to be scientific about it, you know, there’s no consensus yet on what’s in those products that makes them work. They don’t contain beta glucans in any therapeutic level. Their ergotheanine is not detectable.

If you’re looking at Reishi, Reishi only produces its bitter molecules that I mentioned earlier, if it grows on wood. So if you grow it on brown rice, you don’t get any triterpene. So my myceliated Reishi, brown rice isn’t bitter. So you can’t get any of the, the pharmacological benefits of those bitter molecules.

So I do think that there will be some benefit to these products, but we can’t call them a mushroom and the benefits are likely to be very different and derived from a different set of chemistry to that from which, you know, the mycelium, the pure mycelium or the fruiting body is delivering. [00:48:00]

Dr. Weitz: So you’re saying to No, we’re going to get the benefits of mushroom supplements.  We’ve got to make sure that the product contains only from the fruiting body and not the mycelium.

Lee Carroll: No, the, it can be the fruiting body that can be the pure mycelium as a beta glucan. Oh, standardized extract. Or it’s the myceliated grain products, which are an outlier and they, they shouldn’t be considered a mushroom.  And the companies that promote those products, piggyback off all of the traditional claims. So let’s just use Reishi as the example. When you grow Reishi on brown rice, you get, you get very low levels of beta glucans and you get no triterpenes and none of the other molecules are there in any significant level.  So it’s unethical and fraudulent in a way to use the traditional claims that have been developed around the consumption of the mushroom or the fruiting body, which has got high levels of beta glucans, it’s got high levels of triterpenes. It’s not, it’s not. 

Dr. Weitz: So you’re saying there’s, there’s two problems.  The first problem is if the mushrooms used, in the supplement or even the mushrooms you buy at the store. If they’re not grown on the right medium, then you’re not going to get the right product. How do we know the mushrooms we even buy at the store are being grown the right way?

Lee Carroll: Well, the ones that you buy at the store you’re pretty safe.

Dr. Weitz: Oh, we know they’re going to be grown the right way, not on brown rice or

Lee Carroll: no, it’s the, it’s the supplements that, okay.

Dr. Weitz: Okay, so, so then when we’re talking about supplements, number one, [00:50:00] the mushroom in the, uh, supplement needs to be grown on the right medium to have the right raw ingredients, and then if the mycelium is grown on grains, how, how do we know if it says mycelium, that the mycelium is grown on grains, does it have to say that?

Lee Carroll: It has to say that on the label.

Dr. Weitz: Okay.

Lee Carroll: But the trickery is that the labels are replete with images of all of the mushrooms. So you get the consumer gets tricked into thinking, uh, and the average consumer doesn’t, you know, isn’t an avid reader of the labels. So it’s, it’s easy to be misled. So it’s incumbent upon the mycelium on grain manufacturers and producers and sellers to do the research to demonstrate that there is efficacy.  And there’s only a very small amount of that efficacy. [00:51:00] And the people that are prominent in that area create confusion by saying, you know, beta glucans, you know, aren’t all that everybody makes them out to be. There’s other things there.  

Dr. Weitz: So what should the label of a good quality mushroom supplement say in terms of where it’s from?

Lee Carroll: So it should say the, the exact, um, path that’s being used. So, um, the mushroom or the pure mycelium. So, you know, some products, as we talked about, you know, you, When you’ve got pure mycelium that’s grown in a submerged culture, you can get a pure beta glucan from that. And then there’s good evidence around, you know, how they work.

But for the most, they’re not as freely available. So the label should say that it’s, that it’s made from mushroom. It should have the levels of beta glucan. Um, in there for to, to ensure that [00:52:00] there’s, you know, going to be efficacy and where, where, uh, mushrooms have got easily measurable actives. Like Lion’s Mane, there aren’t standard tests yet, so you can’t put it on the label, um, if, if a label says it’s standardized for, for, um, the secondary metabolites, the haricinones that we talked about, that’s not possible because labs can’t do that test yet, so Reishi should have triterpenes on the label, and then a mushroom should be organic, Um, there’s, there’s good access to, you know, organic mushrooms these days and that guarantees, you know, an enhanced level of safety because mushrooms, um, you know, can fall foul of pesticides and chemicals just like plants can.  And China grows like 85, 90 percent of the mushrooms in the world. And they’re a very high quality source for mushrooms. So [00:53:00] the fact that China is the country of origin, um, you know, for many things, it might be a negative, but it’s not a negative for, for mushrooms.

Dr. Weitz: Yeah. As soon as I hear China, I’m like, ah,

Lee Carroll: Yeah, and rightly so. However mushrooms that the growers that, that Real Mushrooms and, and the parent company Namex work with are in the, in the woods of China. They’re being grown in, in pristine places in an organic way. Uh, and very often by people that are the embodiment of the tradition of those mushrooms.  So, there’s a huge amount of ancestral knowledge in China around the use of mushrooms. There’s, there’s numerous mushroom research institutes, you know, I think there’s only one in the US. Um, so. If you, if you’re growing mushrooms in the middle of Beijing, you know, [00:54:00] like, yeah, that might be a problem, but, you know, China is a massive country and there’s plenty of opportunities to, um, grow mushrooms where they’re, where they’re most ideally suited to grow.

Dr. Weitz:  So in terms of supplements, like the real mushroom supplements, is it, is it, better that the supplements are a capsule with powder, or that it’s in a liquid tincture, or some people make a coffee out of mushrooms, make a beverage out of it. Does that affect its efficacy?

Lee Carroll: It, unfortunately it does. Um, it is possible to make a good quality liquid mushroom extract, but I just don’t see any on the market. When you remove the moisture, you can get more concentration. So it’s much more cost effective to, and much more therapeutic in my opinion, to take a dried extract as a capsule compared to a liquid.  All of them. You can see behind me, I use a lot of liquids in my clinic. I see that. You got tinctures. Yeah. Even the, even the high quality professional lines that I use don’t do a good job of liquid mushroom extract. So it is possible. I just don’t see any. So. For the, for the consumer, I think it’s much safer to stick with a, with a dried extract.  There’s lots of reasons to back that up, but they get a bit kind of technical.

Dr. Weitz: So give us an idea of what, what sorts of supplements, let’s say somebody’s on a longevity program and they want to have maximal Brain Health, Neurological Health, Cardiovascular Health. What might be a regimen of, uh, mushroom supplements that they might want to include?

Lee Carroll: Good question.  I’ve been doing mushrooms every day [00:56:00] now since 2020 when I kind of discovered them. Um, so it takes time for the effects to build up. With me, one of the curious effects, there’s two curious effects. Been a herbalist 35 years and my frequency of of infections has been less in the last four years than it was in the previous 15.  So the only difference is mushrooms and my white hair is going black again. So there’s something about the Reishi that I take daily that’s rejuvenating the, the, the pigment cells in my hair. So to get the, to get the benefit out of mushrooms, it can’t be a fad. You have to buy into it. 

Dr. Weitz:  I’ll be totally honest with you, looking at your hair, I’m not sure I’m going to buy the idea that it makes your hair darker, but.

Lee Carroll: Oh, my hair was pure white. Oh, okay. And there’s about 15 percent black hairs there now. You can’t see it on the camera. Right, okay. So it’s just ever so slowly [00:57:00] going back to its original color. Okay. So for people to get the best out of mushrooms, you need to do a range of mushrooms. So, you know, a number of them over the course of years, you can’t just do it for a few months and say, Oh, I tried mushrooms and I didn’t get any benefit.

Dr. Weitz:  Right, I get that. It’s a long term deal.

Lee Carroll: So Real Mushrooms has got a product called 5 Defenders. So it’s got 5 mushrooms. Uh, there’s Lion’s Mane, sorry, there’s, there’s, um, Reishi, there’s, there’s Chaga, there’s Turkey Tail, there’s Maitake and Shitake. So that’s a fantastic blend if you’re, it’s available as a powder or a capsule.  So if you like it as a hot beverage or a cold beverage, it’s a very kind of strong, um, um, Robust, uh, coffee kind of like flavor. So, I would, that’s, I do, I do that daily. Um, so 

Dr. Weitz:  You have the powder or the capsules?

Lee Carroll: I like the powder. So, I do [00:58:00] a gram of that a day. 

Dr. Weitz: Could you add that to your, let’s say I, I made some coffee.  Could I pour that in there?

Lee Carroll: You could, yeah. I like mine neat, but a lot of people like it with the addition of a coffee flavor. So it’s entirely up to the individual how they want to, you know, kind of use that. So one or two grams of that a day, uh, long term is kind of like a, a, a basis for good health.  Um, and then if there’s concerns about cognitive function, I’d take lion, I’d take lion’s mane, you know, one, two, three grams a day. Um, if, if there’s lung and kidney issues, uh, in the patient, I’d recommend cordyceps. If there was, uh, an interest in improving athletic function, then, you know, cordyceps. And then to ensure that there’s enough Ergotheanine, because many of the benefits of mushrooms aren’t just, um, beta glucans, they’re ergotheanine.

I’d re I recommend, [00:59:00] um, taking an Ergo Plus capsule, which delivers a minimum of five milligrams of ergotheanine a day. So, um, you know, those, those three things, so the five defenders as a base, Pick a mushroom that suits, you know, your individual and specific needs, and then add a bit of ergothionine in.  And wherever I get the chance with a patient, that’s what I do.

Dr. Weitz: Right. Cool. So, I think, um, I’m ready to wrap. Um, final thoughts for listeners and viewers, and then, uh, tell us how we can get a hold of the real mushrooms. Are these just sold professionally through practitioners? Or are they sold direct to patients?

Lee Carroll: So it’s through both. So some practitioners have got, uh, accounts and it’s, direct to consumer, so you won’t find it in a shop per se. Okay? So if you go to real mushrooms.com, um, you’ll see all of the products [01:00:00] there. If you use my name, uh, just LEE, it’s very hard for me to say e with an American accent,  So you’ll get, you’ll get, uh, 20% off your order and, okay. My final comment, uh, I think in this whole topic is that mushrooms aren’t a fad. Uh, we need to accept that, um, you know, they’re a natural part of our human history and we need to start taking them as foods and as supplements and never stop. Um, you know, they need to become an integral part of our, of our daily lifestyle routine, just like exercise.  You can’t do. All of your exercise in one year of your life and have the rest of your life off. You know, you’ve got to do it regularly. 

Dr. Weitz: So the website is what? Realmushrooms.com?

Lee Carroll: Yeah, realmushrooms. com.

Dr. Weitz: Cool. Well, thank you so much,

Lee Carroll: Lee. My pleasure, Ben. It’s been wonderful. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you.

 

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Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy Listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a 5 star ratings and review. If you would like to work with me personally to help you improve your health, I do accept a limited number of new patients per month for a functional medicine consultation.  Some of the areas I specialize in include helping patients with specific health issues, like gut problems. neurodegenerative conditions, autoimmune diseases, cardiometabolic conditions, or for an executive health screen and to help you promote longevity and take a deeper dive into some of those factors that can lead to chronic diseases along the way.  Please call my Santa Monica White Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition Office at [01:02:00] 310 395 3111. And we’ll set you up for a new consultation for functional medicine. And I look forward to speaking to everybody next week.