Magic of mushrooms

DOVER – Mushrooms have been used medicinally in Asian cultures for thousands of years. In the last few decades they’ve garnered the attention of scientists and consumers in the West. On the Seacoast, medicinal mushrooms are well known to the staff of natural medicine shops The Herbal Path in Portsmouth and Dover, and The Mustard Seed in Nottingham. 

While the mushrooms you pick up at the grocery store are packed with nutrients like vitamin B2 and selenium, medicinal mushrooms differ from the fungi found in the produce section. Two in particular, reishi and chaga, are commonly used medicinally in the form of powders, tinctures or liquid boiled down from their solid form. 

Found on birch trees, the burnt-looking chaga has been used medicinally in Russia and northern European countries for centuries. Its components, specifically the polysaccharide beta-glucan and betulin and betulinic acid, which are constituents of the birch tree, have been linked to reducing inflammation and stymieing tumor growth.

“The black part of chaga, the charcoal, that’s the amino acid of amino acids,” said Salandrea Patrizi, owner of The Mustard Seed. 

According to a 2014 article by University Health News, chaga mushrooms provide 19 of the 20 amino acids – the building blocks of protein – humans need, including the essential amino acids not produced by our bodies that we must get from food. And chaga mushrooms score the highest among superfoods (nutrient-rich foods like kale and Brussels sprouts) in antioxidant potency.

“Based on studies,” Patrizi said, “chaga has an anti-carcinogenic quality and is good for immune support.” One study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences in 2008, found that betulinic acid induced “apoptotic cell death in cancer cells;” in other words, it triggered the body to kill the cancerous cells.

Reishi mushrooms also contain beta-glucan sugars and are reported as having similar antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor growth properties to chaga. It is also known as the “mushroom of immortality.”

Gregory McCrone has been a registered pharmacist since 1978. After studying under world-renowned herbalist Rosemary Gladstar, McCrone turned to herbal medicine professionally. He’s been with The Herbal Path for 18 years.

A trove of knowledge on fungi, he said, “reishi are adaptogens. They are good for many things – relieving stress, boosting the immune system – and help balance hormonal signals in our bodies.” Reishi, he said, “calms the shen, which is like the heart or spirit.”

Historically, humans have sought alternatives – alternative views of history, alternative music, alternative facts – to ideologies or cultural norms. And over the past few decades, patients and health care professionals have been shifting from mainstream medicine to alternative, or natural, medicine.

Ron Stock started out in the health industry as a pharmacist but left the profession to open The Herbal Path in 1997.

“I was frustrated by the health care, or rather disease care, system. We try to maintain disease rather than prevent it. So diseases like diabetes, asthma, we don’t cure them. So that led me down the path to natural medicine. And I haven’t looked back.”

This year marks The Herbal Path’s 20th anniversary, and after two decades serving customers, there is a sense of community in the shop. Staff members, including three pharmacists, are on hand to help customers understand natural medicine but not to diagnose medical conditions.

“People will come in and say, “Hey, can you look at my rash?” Stock said. “But we can’t diagnose. We can make recommendations for natural alternatives.”

Last year, Stock opened Earth’s Harvest Kitchen & Juicery, a counter service-style restaurant using healthy, locally-sourced produce and ingredients.

“Earth’s Harvest is filling the gap for local and organic. People are concerned about GMOs (genetically-modified organisms), pesticides, hormones.”

Like Stock, Patrizi of The Mustard Seed promotes natural alternatives to health but with a focus on herbs and spices. An herbalist since 1969, Patrizi opened the Nottingham store in 1982 before adding a location in downtown Portsmouth. In 2007 she decided to close that shop and has since expanded products and services at the Nottingham store, from certifying herbalists to offering treatments like Bowenwork.

Inside, rows of glass jars containing herbal and spice mixtures line the walls like wallpaper. Some mixtures include the medicinal fungi she is well-versed in, like reishi and maitake, another medicinal mushroom. Chunks of chaga mushroom fill another jar.

In talking about the long list of medicinal mushroom’s health benefits, Patrizi said she would never say they could cure any medical condition. In fact, she would never use the word “cure” in any context. Rather, she likes the term “holistic ecology,” believing that “if you give your body what it needs, it will go into the healing modality.”

It should be noted that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved all of the statements on the products in stores about the health benefits from reishi and chaga. Additionally, some health experts, including those from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, advise that while these fungi have some reported medicinal uses, more research is needed to determine their safety and effectiveness.