Medicinal Value

Mushrooms have long been considered to have medicinal value. The early herbalists were more interested in the medicinal properties of mushrooms than in their basic value as a source of food. Humankind has constantly searched for new substances that can improve biological functions and thereby make people fitter and healthier. Recently, Western society has placed a great emphasis on plants, herbs, and foods as sources of these health enhancers. About 3.5 billion people worldwide, well over half of the world’s population, rely on plant-based medicines and dietary supplements for their primary health care. These products have variously been called vitamins, dietary supplements, phytochemicals, nutraceuticals, and nutriceuticals. Dietary supplements ⁸¹ are ingredients extracted from foods, herbs, plants, and fungal species that are not used as a regular food but which boost the immune system or otherwise help maintain health. Phytochemical (phytonutrient) is a more recent evolution of the term that emphasizes the plant source of such protective disease-preventing compounds. Nutraceuticals, proposed by DeFelice in 1979 and quoted by Brower in 1988, ³ are foods that provide medical or health benefits, including the prevention and treatment of disease. The term nutraceutical has been redefined by Zeise1 ⁸¹ as a diet supplement that delivers a concentrated form of a presumed bioactive agent from a food at dosage levels exceeding those that could be obtained from normal food. Nutraceuticals are present in a nonfood matrix and are used to enhance health. A mushroom nutriceutical ⁶ is a refined and partially defined extract from either the mycelium or the fruiting body of a mushroom, which is consumed in the form of capsules or tablets as a dietary supplement (not in the form of a food) and which has potential therapeutic application. During the past decade, there has been a major expansion in the industries involved in providing these substances, especially in the United States. In 1990, U.S. dietary supplement sales were valued at U.S. $3.3 billion; in 1992, U.S. $3.7 billion; in 1994, U.S. $5.0 billion; in 1996, U.S. $6.5 billion; in 1998, U.S. $12.0 billion; and in the year 2000, it was estimated to have reached U.S. $14.0 billion. ⁸¹