Immune System

PMID:
16941973
[PubMed – in process]
A promising clinical study shows that the turkey tail mushroom (Trametes versicolor) improves the immune systems of breast cancer patients. The multiyear study, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), tracked whether or not turkey tails could positively affect the immune system of patients rebound after they ended their radiation therapy.

Immunity — as measured by the number of lymphocyte cells and natural killer cell activity — usually declines dramatically after radiotherapy. Natural killer (NK) cells protect us from tumors and viruses. Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School and Bastyr University Research Institute hypothesized that breast cancer patients’ health can be improved after radiation treatment if NK cell counts increased quickly to attack remaining cancerous cells.
The study titled “Phase I Clinical Trial of Trametes versicolor in Women with Breast Cancer,” recently published in the ISRN Oncology Journal, shows that turkey tail mushrooms can augment conventional therapies for treating breast cancer by increasing NK and CD8+T cell activity. This study suggests that turkey tail mushrooms are an effective adjunct to conventional chemotherapeutic medicines and radiation therapy. The authors concluded:

Autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, juvenile diabetes, sjorgen’s, anemia