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As you get older, your brain doesn’t maintain itself the way it used to.
And mushrooms could be a key to keeping your brain healthy.
People have known about the medicinal value of mushrooms for centuries.
And academic research, mostly on lion’s mane mushrooms,
seems to support the generational knowledge on the topic.
Through studies in individual cells, in rodents, and in humans,
scientists have found that specific compounds in lion’s mane mushrooms
stimulate nerves and brain cells to grow, and keep them alive longer.
And labs across the world are now uncovering some important clues
as to why mushrooms can be so beneficial.
Under usual circumstances, many different cells in your body, including neurons
and other brain cells, grow and survive thanks to the work of nerve growth factors.
These are proteins that your body makes, which bind to receptors on those cells
and initiate a whole cascade of signals, ending in either the cells’ death or growth.
So nerve growth factors are really important in keeping your cells alive and well.
And scientists have figured out that extracts of lion’s mane mushrooms
stimulate cell growth by making those growth factors better at their job.
They basically tell your body to make more
nerve growth factors so they can initiate more growth.
For example, when scientists exposed adrenal cells from rats to the
lion’s mane extracts, they found that the cells grew more.
And not just more than cells that didn’t get any mushrooms, but even more than
cells that were exposed to natural amounts of nerve growth factors.
So mushroom extracts stimulated growth in those cells
better than what they’re exposed to in a healthy living rat!
And that happens because they both stimulate activity in
those nerve growth factors and mimic them,
using compounds called hericenones to produce similar growth on their own.
So they not only stimulate growth factors, but they also simulate growth factors.
Through those methods, lion’s mane mushrooms help brain cells grow bigger,
extend outward to interact with other cells, and stay alive.
And all of these cellular benefits can translate to better brain function.
A 2017 collaboration across Switzerland, Italy, and Slovenia found that
supplementing mouse diets with lion’s mane mushrooms
for two months improved their memory.
In that study, mice were fed mushrooms for 2 months and then observed
as they performed a commonly used memory test.
The mushroom-eating mice were drawn more toward new things,
which suggested that they remembered the old stimuli
better than mice that didn’t eat a mushroom enriched diet.
So, sometimes, the data really does add up, because the experiments on cells
in dishes lined up nicely with the experiments on mice.
Lion’s mane mushrooms increased the creation of new cells in the hippocampus,
the memory center of the brain, and improved memory.
So those new cells are doing things!
The same study found that mushroom consumption was also associated
with brain cells in the hippocampus being more active
and releasing more neurotransmitters.
So brain cells were not only growing more to reach out and connect
with more cells, but also actively communicating more with other cells.
Now, in addition to apparently improving growth and communication,
there’s also evidence that some of these mushroom compounds
may help your brain cells live longer.
In brain cells and the brain’s immune cells,
there’s an enzyme that causes inflammation and often leads to cell death.
A Korean study on mice published in 2019 found that a low dose of
lion’s mane mushrooms decreased the number of brain cells expressing
that enzyme, providing an anti-inflammatory effect
and keeping those cells from dying.
That effect comes from a different set of mushroom compounds called erinacines,
which initiate another cascade of signals that reduces inflammation.
So some cellular studies are pointing to hericenones,
and some rodent studies are suggesting erinacines are the mushroom compounds
to thank for the improved brain cell function and memory.
But what happens in us humans?
Well, the mushrooms seem to provide similar benefits to us,
but scientists aren’t quite sure which compounds are creating those effects.
In a 2019 Japanese study, people who took mushroom powder four times a day
for 12 weeks scored higher on a memory test than the placebo group
and higher than they had scored before taking the supplements.
And the growth factors that were so critical in cellular experiments are
also deficient in people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease,
so there may be some important implications for this research in the future.
For now, evidence suggests that nerve growth factors are the proteins
behind this mushroom’s effect, but researchers still
aren’t quite sure how the mushroom makes them tick.
Some researchers suspect that hericenones are major contributors,
because there are a lot of them in the fruiting part of the mushroom,
and they’re known to stimulate growth factors.
Other compounds like erinacines have also been proposed,
because studies in human cells have found that hericenones alone
don’t provide the same benefits as whole mushrooms do,
at least not at natural concentrations.
And erinacines are also known to stimulate growth factors.
So researchers are still trying to figure out what exactly
about the mushrooms leads to their restorative effect.
It might be a combination of hericenones, erinacines, and maybe even others too.
But either way, they tend to agree that lion’s mane mushrooms
have the potential to be really good brain food.
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