The Importance of A Healthy Immune System is at a Fever Pitch

Mushrooms: A Natural Immune System Booster

For centuries, mushrooms have been used by Asian health practitioners to promote health and to fight illness and disease. Ancient healers knew mushrooms were beneficial but could not always explain way. Modern medical scientists are now providing the explanation of why mushrooms are so effective in promoting good health. There seems to have been an explosion of research in the past decade on the health benefits of food, mushrooms included. And many of these studies are finding evidence that supports the argument that mushrooms aid in preventing and treating illness and disease by helping to maintain normal cellular and immune function. Much of the research on medicinal mushrooms has focused on the key antioxidant in mushrooms – called L-Ergothioneine (ERGO) – as a natural way of preventing and treating diseases ranging from cancer to arthritis to the common cold. ERGO is a far more powerful antioxidant than that found in other substances such as beta-carotene and vitamins C and E. One unit of the ERGO antioxidant is equal to 7,000 units of the antioxidant Trolox (water soluble vitamin E.) Antioxidants are the body’s defense system and aid in the prevention of cellular damage – damage that contributes to aging, injury, cancer and many other diseases.

Research has also shown that the ERGO antioxidant found in mushrooms is not only the most potent of antioxidants but also the one most efficiently used by the body. Humans, and animals such as horses and dogs, possess a unique specific “transport” system that easily moves ERGO around the body to where it’s needed. And unlike antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, unused ERGO is stored by the body for quick use rather than flushed as waste.

Researchers at Tufts University, who conducted studies in 2007 and 2008 and published their work in The Journal of Nutrition, also have found evidence that mushrooms enhance natural killer (NK) cell activity. Killer cells defend the body against illness and disease by seeking out and destroying such things as tumors and cells infected with viruses.

Understandably, most people are always interested in anything that helps keep illness and disease at bay. And more and more people are realizing that food plays an important role in health. The potent, immune boosting antioxidants found within mushrooms help to fortify the cell wall, which makes it more difficult for viral infections to penetrate the cell. This helps us stay healthy even when we come in contact with infectious diseases.

The benefits of mushrooms, as with many “super” foods, are more likely to be gained when eaten as a whole food or taken as a whole food supplement. Isolating the particular vitamins and nutrients of mushrooms is less effective than eating whole mushrooms or taking a whole mushroom nutritional supplement, such as those produced by YS Nutrition. It is the combination of the many vitamins and nutrients of mushrooms working together that provide the greatest nutritional benefit. 

YS Nutritionbrings these amazing benefits to your horse in Equine-D and Young Horse, Coppers Choice for your dog and the Performance-D Immune, Traum and Extreme for you.  It is never too late to get healthy, start today.