Reishi mushroom during treatment?

[Guest guest]

While there is preclinical interest and study in this natural product, we

are not aware of any clinical study showing it can be beneficial for

specific cancers during treatment (as of July 2010). At present there are no

active studies for " Ganoderma lucidum " (Reishi mushroom) and lymphoma in the

ClinicalTrials.gov registry.

One issue is the lack of study on purified compounds as described in a

review paper:

Copying: " Careful selection of appropriate â-glucans is essential if we wish

to investigate the effects of â-glucans clinically. So far, no good quality

clinical trial data is available on assessing the effectiveness of purified

â-glucans among cancer patients. Future effort should direct at performing

well-designed clinical trials to verify the actual clinical efficacy of

â-glucans or â-glucans containing compounds. "

Source: The effects of â-glucan on human immune and cancer cells

Chan, et al. J Hematol Oncol. 2009; 2: 25. http://bit.ly/cIBT0P

Since Reishi mushroom is a commercially available product, be aware that the

potential of this product is often hyped on the Internet ... particularly by

groups that sell supplement - or well-meaning people hoping that natural

products will provide some kind of magical advantage over modern medicine.

Finally, there is no more potent stimulant of the immune system (the

granulocytes component) than g-csf (neupogen) to keep you on schedule and

reduce the risk of infection.

All the best,

~ Karl

Patients Against Lymphoma

Patients Helping Patients

How to Help: www.lymphomation.org/how-to-help.htm