(Our Lion's Mane mushroom posing for a photo!)
It’s simpler than you think or may have read in marketing material. Lion’s Mane mushroom helps to improve memory, focus and mood via the gut-brain connection also known as the gut microbiota-brain axis. Let’s not forget that mushrooms are food, and food is our body’s medicine.
You can and should eat your way to good health, as most non-genetic diseases are preventable. In fact, nearly all the maladies of our times are lifestyle induced.
The gut-brain relationship is awe-inspiring and dictated by the gut’s microbiome. An ecosystem of microorganisms unique to your body that coexist inside the gastrointestinal tract (GI), or gut. The GI tract starts in your mouth and ends, well... at the bottom.
A healthy microbiome contains millions of microorganisms encompassing a mix of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses. The gut and brain communicate to one another in a bidirectional (two-way) manner via the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the body extending from the brainstem down into the large intestine.
FUN FACT: The weight of the gut microbiome is about 1 kg in adults.
This nerve is crucial for metabolic functions, including control of mood, immune response, digestion, respiration, blood pressure and heart rate (among others). How so? Thanks to helpful bacteria producing neurochemicals – including serotonin - that get sent to the brain via the vagus nerve to regulate our basic physiological and mental processes.
The vagus nerve is able to sense the activity of microbiota metabolites (or gut bacteria) and transfers this gut information to the central nervous system where it is integrated and then generates an adapted or inappropriate response from the brain.
DID YOU KNOW: Inflammation is the body’s reaction to dysbiosis!
I’d like to make the point here, that the root cause of many autoimmune and functional disorders is dysbiosis. A term you might want to remember, it simply means ‘an out of balance gut’. Dysbiosis typically occurs when the good and bad microorganisms in your gut get out of balance.
Dysbiosis is caused by what goes into your mouth... be it food, beverage or medication.
There are three types of dysbiosis that can occur individually or in combination.
Loss of beneficial organisms
Excessive growth of harmful organisms
Loss of overall microbial diversity
IMPORTANT NOTE: Any alterations in the gut microbiome, particularly a lack of microbial diversity due to lifestyle, diet and medication, affects the transmission of signals via the vagus nerve. Which in turn, causes the brain to react accordingly.
A healthy gut microbiome mix consists of multiple species of beneficial bacteria. To create diversity, you need to provide them with a wholesome food source and hydration. The nutritional basis for good health dictates that we eat (at least) five fruits and vegetables, a variety of unprocessed wholefoods and drink around two liters of water per day.
Eating a wide variety of vegetables and fruits provides your gut with probiotic and prebiotic fibres for bacteria to break down via ingestion, which provides them the essential fuel they need to maintain themselves and create the metabolites that positively influence brain function.
Most bacteria enter the gut from eating food and drinking water, and a small number of microorganisms not destroyed by stomach acid make it through to the large intestine. Here they can either enhance the beneficial ‘flora’ (microbiome ecosystem) or disrupt it, depending on the species.
This is where Lion’s Mane mushroom comes in. Mushrooms are an important source of natural bioactive compounds, including proteins, vitamins, minerals, dietary fibers and antioxidants (which help protect cells from damage and inflammation that might lead to chronic diseases).
Of interest to your gut’s bacteria are the dietary fibers – or polysaccharides - found within Lion’s Mane mushroom. Humans lack enzymes to digest carbohydrates such as β-glucan (a polysaccharide which is a dietary fiber). So, they pass through the stomach to the large intestine where they become a prebiotic food for the beneficial microbes in our gut.
Since the microbiome helps to regulate our immunity, mushroom β-glucan’s play a prebiotic role in the gut by increasing abundance and diversity of intestinal flora. In summary, Lion’s Mane mushroom helps to regulate the gut microbiota which has an influence on our memory, focus and mood (the metabolic processes mentioned earlier).
An adage regularly used by herbalists is... “If the gut’s not right, the rest of the body’s not right.”
Living well is a choice, so it’s worth reminding you that most diseases are lifestyle-induced. Meaning, disease doesn’t just strike you down. Your body was born well (there are exceptions to this rule) and becomes unwell over a lifetime of choices.
Lifestyle diseases result from three modifiable behaviours;
Smoking
Unhealthy diet (be honest with yourself about what you eat and drink) and medication overuse/misuse
Physical inactivity
The result of your choices and behaviours, if not in-line with best health advice, is the (usually gradual) development of chronic diseases over time. Such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, IBS, Crohn’s Disease, ulcerative colitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, some types of cancer and functional disorders.
Our medicinal mushroom remedies, like many plant-based medicines, are effective when ingested daily over time. Our Lion’s Mane Remedy provides many powerful health benefits including improved digestion, a strengthened immune system and... improved brain function.
INTERESTING FACT: Using Lion's Mane Remedy daily as a supplement can help to inhibit the growth of Helicobacter pylori, a bad bacteria that causes inflammation of the stomach lining (known as gastritis), peptic ulcers and may lead to stomach cancer.
Vanessa Lahey Copyright 2024