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International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms

Published 12 issues per year

ISSN Print: 1521-9437

ISSN Online: 1940-4344

The Impact Factor measures the average number of citations received in a particular year by papers published in the journal during the two preceding years. 2017 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2018) IF: 1.2 To calculate the five year Impact Factor, citations are counted in 2017 to the previous five years and divided by the source items published in the previous five years. 2017 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2018) 5-Year IF: 1.4 The Immediacy Index is the average number of times an article is cited in the year it is published. The journal Immediacy Index indicates how quickly articles in a journal are cited. Immediacy Index: 0.3 The Eigenfactor score, developed by Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington, is a rating of the total importance of a scientific journal. Journals are rated according to the number of incoming citations, with citations from highly ranked journals weighted to make a larger contribution to the eigenfactor than those from poorly ranked journals. Eigenfactor: 0.00066 The Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) is a single measurement of the field-normalized citation impact of journals in the Web of Science Core Collection across disciplines. The key words here are that the metric is normalized and cross-disciplinary. JCI: 0.34 SJR: 0.274 SNIP: 0.41 CiteScore™:: 2.8 H-Index: 37

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Anticancer Medicinal Mushrooms Can Provide Significant Vitamin D2 (Ergocalciferol)

Volume 7, Issue 3, 2005, pp. 471-472
DOI: 10.1615/IntJMedMushrooms.v7.i3.1020
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ABSTRACT

Studies since 1966 have documented antitumor activities by the β-glucan and triterpene components of numerous Basidiomycetes mushrooms. However, these active ingredients may not explain all of the observed pharmacologic effects. To date, the potential pharmacologic role of vitamin D2 (ergosterol) in medicinal mushrooms has not been examined. Vitamin D2, when transformed by the liver into the potent vitamin D3, is a seco-steroid that, like thyroid hormone, binds to a specific receptor within the superfamily of nuclear receptors for steroid hormones. The vitamin D nuclear receptor is found not only on intestine, bone, liver, and kidney tissues but also on lymphocytes, monocytes, and macrophages as well as hematopoietic, skin, muscle, heart, pancreas, adrenal, brain, reproductive, lung, pituitary, thyroid, and cartilage tissues. Vitamin D3 regulates gene expression for multiple physiological functions, including those for the central nervous system and immune system. This study tested the hypothesis that in mushroom species with documented anticancer activity, mushroom ergosterol exposure to UV-B energy from sun drying significantly increases vitamin D2 content.
Three specific medicinal mushroom species with strain-specific documented chains of custody were grown under standard conditions indoors. Fruiting bodies were harvested and dried indoors by commercial dryers or outside under the summer sun for 6−8 hours. The products were then subjected to standardized HPLC analysis in conformity with the Official Methods of Analysis of AOAC International (2000) 17th Ed., AOAC International, Gaithersburg, MD, USA, Official Method 982.29 (Modified).
Ganoderma lucidum (W.Curt.:Fr.) Lloyd (Reishi), Lentinus edodes (Berk.) Singer (Shiitake), and Grifola frondosa (Dicks.:Fr.) S.F.Gray (Maitake) dried indoors demonstrated D2 content of 6, 134, and 460 IU per 100 grams, respectively. When dried by sunlight outdoors, the D2 content increased to 2760, 21,400, and 31,900 IU per 100 grams, respectively.
These data have three important implications. First, the potential vitamin D2 content of antitumor medicinal mushrooms must be considered as a confounding factor in mushroom research. Vitamin D3 stabilizes chromosomal structure and prevents DNA double-strand breaks induced by either endogenous or exogenous factors. Vitamin D3 induces cell cycle arrest, promotes differentiation, and induces apoptosis. Vitamin D3 acts as an antiproliferation agent against many cancers, including breast, prostate, colon, and bladder. In addition, vitamin D3 inhibits both tumor invasion and tumor angiogenesis.
Second, sun-exposed mushrooms may be an excellent dietary response for addressing the significant world-wide incidence of vitamin D deficiency. Inadequate vitamin D status not only places people at risk for osteoporosis, but appears to be a significant risk factor for development of cancer. For many cancers, a significant inverse correlation exists between mortality rates and UV-B radiation exposure. For example, the risk of fatal breast cancer in the major urban areas of the United States is inversely proportional to the intensity of local sunlight (r = −0.80, p = 0.0001), and such inverse correlations also exist for prostate, colon, bladder, ovary, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, esophageal, kidney, lung, pancreatic, rectal, stomach, and corpus uteri cancers.
Third, this study challenges the USDA claim that the average edible mushroom contains 76 IU (1.9 μg) of vitamin D per 100 grams and that shiitake mushrooms contain 1550 IU per 100 grams. For retrospective studies of diet and nutrition, use of these standard references may undermine the scientific legitimacy of both the data and its analysis.
Vitamin D2 is not as potent as vitamin D3. For many years, vitamin D2 was considered much safer than vitamin D3 because of the additional metabolism required for activation. Thus, although the current RDA for vitamin D is 400 IU per day, prescription doses of ergocalciferol at 50,000 IU twice a week only slowly increase vitamin D levels in deficient adults. However, vitamin D in excessive doses can be toxic and even fatal. This is particularly true in persons with cancer und other diseases that predispose them to hypercalcemia. Further understanding of vitamin D2’s pharmacokinetics and metabolite biologic activities is necessary.

CITED BY
  1. Niksic Miomir, Klaus Anita, Argyropoulos Dimitrios, Safety of Foods Based on Mushrooms, in Regulating Safety of Traditional and Ethnic Foods, 2016. Crossref

  2. Rousta Neda, Larsson Karin, Fristedt Rikard, Undeland Ingrid, Agnihotri Swarnima, Taherzadeh Mohammad J., Production of fungal biomass from oat flour for the use as a nutritious food source, NFS Journal, 29, 2022. Crossref

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