Abstract
For thousands of years, mushrooms have been prized as highly nutritious foods by many civilizations in the world. In addition to their nutritional properties, the people of orient region are using a large number of edible and nonedible mushrooms for curing various ailments. Mushrooms fall somewhere in between the true plants and animals and have been mentioned, reported and researched upon to possess unique and potent pharmacological properties. Many such claims have also been validated, and new therapeutic applications have been developed as result of extensive scientific studies. These are being produced and traded in significant quantities – the annual trade in the medicinal mushrooms and their products is roughly estimated around $24 bn. Though more than 20 species of the medicinal mushrooms are currently being produced and commercially traded, the value-wise most important ones are the species of Ganoderma, Grifola, Cordyceps, Lentinula, Hericium and Schizophyllum of which Ganoderma is the unquestioned “king of medicinal mushrooms”. Many of these mushrooms are known for its anticancer properties, but they also possess other potentially important immunological and curative properties such as free radical scavenging, antiviral, antihypercholesterolaemia, antimicrobial, detoxification, hepatoprotective and antidiabetic effects (Wasser 2011).
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Sharma, V.P., Annepu, S.K. (2018). Advancement in Medicinal Mushroom Research. In: Singh, B., Peter, K. (eds) New Age Herbals. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8291-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8291-7_8
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