One of the most beautiful things about medicinal mushrooms is that they feed and tone the immune system. This means that they optimise the function of the immune system. The benefits accumulate over time as you take more mushrooms - think of it like exercise, the more you do it, the fitter you get. Mushies exercise our immune systems, and the longer we take them, the ‘fitter’ our immune system gets. The body’s immunity begins to lift to a level that ideally keeps us as protected as possible in this crazy pathogenic world.⠀
⠀
Medicinal mushies are full of these things called polysaccharides (especially beta-glucans, polysaccharopeptides, and polysaccharide proteins) as well as other bioactive substances like triterpenes, lipids and phenols that induce cell division (mitosis) and activate the cells that comprise the immune system. Basically, these mushie’s magical compounds mimic the bad guys (but aren’t actually bad guys, we prefer to think of them as ‘mystery shoppers,’ testing the immune system to see if it knows what it’s doing) and train the immune system.⠀
⠀
Medicinal mushrooms exercise the immune system to make it stronger, more adaptive and help normalise its responses (so it ceases being reactive and is able to have the smarts to know when it needs to get involved or when it can chill).⠀
⠀
Some of the immune cells medicinal mushrooms activate include:⠀
👊🏼macrophages (large white blood cells that scavenge and eat debris and invaders in the body - they form up the resistance and clean up the mess).⠀
👊🏼neutrophils (a type of white blood cell that ingests microorganisms in the body and releases enzymes to kill these baddies, these are like the first responders of the body - the emergency crew - they also make pus!).⠀
👊🏼natural killer cells (yep, that’s their real name! These guys are best known for sorting out viruses and killing cells that have become dysfunctional in the body - think of them as the Secret Ops team, that take out rogue cells)⠀
dendritic cells (these guys are like security, patrolling the body, using their long tentacles to detect pathogens.