Mushrooms prevent cognitive decline
(Summarized from the original article:
ARE MUSHROOMS THE BEST BRAIN FOOD?")
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Edible mushrooms come in many varieties. Most are a source of ergothioneine... |
What are the benefits to the brain of eating mushrooms?
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So mushrooms have a lot of ergothioneine in them — far more than any other food we know of...
Barry Halliwell and his group at the University of Singapore had published a different paper a few years ago, in which they showed that as people aged, the levels of ergothioneine in their blood dropped significantly. He found that people who had the steepest decline in ergothioneine had the highest incidence of cognitive impairment.
A similar study was done with people with Parkinson’s disease, and it also found that people with Parkinson’s disease have a lower level of ergothioneine in their blood than age-matched normal people. So things started to point to the brain. And we do know that this compound passes the blood-brain barrier, which a lot of other things don’t do.
Another paper that came out a couple of years ago, where they estimated the ergothioneine consumption in people from five different countries: the United States, Finland, Ireland, France, and Italy. I don’t know why they chose those five, but they took their data and calculated how much ergo that would amount to on average for the average person — how many milligrams per day were consumed by an average 150-pound person. It came out like the United States was 1.1 and Finland was 1.3, and the highest was Italy with 4.6, and the other two countries were in between.
It made me want to find data on the incidence of neurodegenerative diseases by country, and sure enough you can get that. In this case, I got data on Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s/dementia. When you compare the amount of ergothioneine consumption estimated versus the incidence of these diseases, you get this curve where the United States and Finland are up very high as far as the rate of disease, and low in the ergo consumption. And it just sweeps right down, with Italy at the highest ergo consumption and lowest incidence of these diseases. So it looks like there could be a relationship there.
That’s fascinating.
There are some epidemiological studies that have been done, with the one in Singapore being the latest. There are three of those now, involving large numbers of people, and they show that as people consume more mushrooms, they have lower levels of either cognitive impairment or dementia.
There was one a couple years ago done in Japan with 13,500 people in the cohort. And I think the one in Singapore had 600 and some. And then there was one done in Norway back in 2010.
All of these point to the same kind of hypothesis that we’re proposing here. Of course, the epidemiological studies were done with whole-mushroom consumption and not ergothioneine in isolation, but it seems to probably be one of the primary bioactive components in the mushrooms that are causing this effect.
So grocery-store button mushrooms are not the best source of L-ergothioneine but they are still a good source?
Yes, they are.
What does your own mushroom intake look like?
My wife and I eat them maybe about two or three days a week, but I take mushroom-powder capsules every day, and she does as well. I make a lion’s-mane powder, which has gotten a lot of interest now, and she puts some in her coffee.
Futher reading
- Google search:-
ergothioneine+parkinsons - Slash your risk of cognitive decline with this simple dietary intervention https://www.naturalhealth365.com/risk-of-cognitive-decline-slashed-3861.html
- ARE MUSHROOMS THE BEST BRAIN FOOD? https://www.americanmushroom.org/news/2019/05/08/ami/are-mushrooms-the-best-brain-food/
- Alzheimer's drug discovery foundation: L-Ergothioneine
- https://www.alzdiscovery.org/uploads/cognitive_vitality_media/Ergothioneine-Cognitive-Vitality-For-Researchers.pdf
- Mushroom Magic (states which re the best sources of ergothioneine):-
https://www.betternutrition.com/features/medicinal-mushroom/