Turkey tails!

When you saw the title of today’s post, I bet your first thought was Thanksgiving, huh? Well, nope. Not at all.

A blog reader (thanks!) sent me the link to an absolutely fascinating Huffington Post interview with Dr. Paul Stamets, published just a few days after this well-known mycologist (=mushroom scientist) gave a TEDMED talk concerning new medical uses for mushrooms. Note: I wasn’t able to find that video online…yet. But, no matter. In the above-mentioned H Post interview, Dr. Stamets provides us with more than enough food for thought. For instance, this:

As stated at TEDMED, the FDA is so adverse to the approval of new drugs (and scandal!) that the estimates are now that a new drug costs more than a billion dollars to get to market. Drugs are isolated constituents — single molecules — studied for their activity. Mushrooms are constellations of hundreds of thousands of constituents.
What single drug can benefit you by: 

1) supporting and strengthening your immune system?
2) providing anti-inflammatory properties?
3) providing anti-oxidant properties?
4) restricting blood vessel growth feeding tumors (“anti-angiogenesis”)?
5) causing programmed cell death of cancer cells (“apoptosis”)?
6) providing antiviral effects?
7) restricting the growth of pathogenic bacteria?
8 ) assisting conventional anti-cancer drugs to work more effectively at lower doses?
NONE. 

Wow, how about that billion dollars? YIKESSSSSS!!! And how about the effect that mushrooms have on angiogenesis and apoptosis and the immune system and…etc.!…Impressive, huh? Actually, come to think of it, we can’t be that surprised. After all, Reishi, = Ganoderma lucidum, has very strong anti-myeloma effects, which I’ve written about here on the blog (I still have to test Reishi properly, but some day I will!). Oh, I would also like to mention that curcumin covers most, if not all, of the points on Dr. Stamets list…

Interesting: using Turkey Tail mushrooms (see photo…a lovely thing, isn’t it?), Dr. Stamets helped his own mother fight a difficult battle with Stage IV breast cancer. Oh, sorry!, I got so carried away that I almost forgot to give you the link to the H Post interview (!), where you can read all about Turkey Tails and much much MUCH more: http://goo.gl/RooXj This H Post page also features the TED Talk that Dr. Stamets gave in 2008 on the “6 ways mushrooms can save the world.”

Here, among other things (beginning at minute 12:05), he mentions how mushrooms have an extraordinarily high activity against flu virus strains, including H1N1. Aha! As I did last year, I’m not going to have a flu shot this year, either, so this titbit may turn out to be very useful…

This video will or should blow you away (well, it blew ME away, at any rate…). I mean, the next time I walk in a forest, I will REALLY THINK about where I’m stepping and, most of all, WHAT I’m stepping ON… 😉 What I just wrote will make sense after you watch the video…which definitely opened up a whole new world for me…I mean, how about those carpenter ants…and that mushroom popping out of an ant’s head??? And how about that experiment with diesel and other petroleum waste piles? And…oh…so much interesting information in less than 18 minutes…Please find the time to read the interview, then watch the video…

Boyohboy, these TED Talks are quite something, aren’t they?

6 Comments

  1. Hi Margaret, great stuff. I am now going to load up on shiitakes! I also sent an email and link to the “scoop” link for the Huffington Post about Bradner. That would make a perfect feature for them, especially the revolutionary open source nature of what he did. Hey, maybe, they will post it with a story like they did for Stamets. Terry from NJ.

  2. Has anyone with Multiple Myeloma tried Turkey tail mushrooms or other medicinal mushrooms ? I have a friend recently diagnosed, soon to undergo BM transplant.

    1. Amy,

      I was diagnosed as smouldering in Jan 2016 so very new. I am on curcumin and a number of other supplements. I went to a naturopath to assess my supplements and I started a mushroom complex (powder) 2 weeks ago. It is Metagenics Mushroom Complex and includes Coriolis mushroom (turkey tail). It also includes three other mushrooms. Too early for me to say if any effect but I thought I would let you know. Best wishes.

      1. Hi Amy, I have recently been diagnosed as smoldering. I know it’s a long shot, but wanted to ask whether you had any success with the mushroom complex. Thanks and best wishes to you!

  3. Hello: So grateful to stumble on this Myeloma topic on Margaret’s Page. I was accidentally diagnosed with Myeloma in October 2019, stage 1, Kappa light chain, was told low count of cancer present. My life turned upside down, I’m only 5 feet tall, and was a little over weight at Diagnosis, but not now. Never the less, after 8 months of treatment I underwent a Stem Cell transplant at Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver, BC August 2020, I almost died, like one lady wrote “not home” I was not home for almost a week, my esophagus, throat and bowels burnt from the chemo, anyways, I made it, I started taking Turkey tail about a month ago, along with curcumin, all my blood work is normal except the MCV which is connected apparently to B12, so thrilled to read about others taking turkey tail and curcumin. I was given a immunization sheet to undergo a rigid coarse of immunization, has anyone else done this kind of coarse of action? The only immunization I had prior the SCT was the pneumonia shot and that is what I came down with right after the transplant, so I am very reluctant to take any more. My daughter was diagnosed with Level 2 Astrocytoma brain tumour, 12 years ago, she was given 3 years to live, she changed everything in her life and took curcumin abundantly, she looked after me during my transplant and lives on her own, drives, looks after herself completely, there is something to alternative medicine. Yeah for turkey tail,,stumbled on it accidentally, to heal my throat and bowels, I drink Alo Vera

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