Medicinal Mushroom for Prevention of Disease of Modern Civilization

Copyright © 2015 Da-wei Qin et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Disease of modern civilization (DMC) such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease is caused by the pressure and tension, as well as nutritional imbalance, coupled with a lack of exercise, long-term cumulative a class of diseases. Medicinal mushrooms have diverse morphological, physiological , and ecological characteristics that support their diverse lifestyles. These specific interspecies interactions depend on the production of a wide range of bioactive substances. Medicinal mushrooms are well recognized for their medicinal properties and have been used in traditional medicine for millennia. Cordyceps sinensis is an abundant resource in nature with various biological activities. Within the genus Cordyceps, over 400 species have been described so far, of which Cordy-ceps sinensis, also called " Winter Worm, Summer Grass, " is recognized as the most famous tonic herb in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for centuries. Many studies have shown that Cordyceps sinensis modulates immune responses, decreases plasma cholesterol levels, enhances hepatic function , regulates insulin sensitivity, and improves hypotensive and vasorelaxant activity. C. Han et al. review the chemical constituents and pharmacological actions of Cordyceps sinen-sis. Many bioactive components of Cordyceps sinensis have been extracted including nucleoside, polysaccharide, sterol, protein, amino acid, polypeptide, and others. In addition, these constituents' corresponding pharmacological actions were also shown in the study, such as anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antitumour, antiapoptosis, and immunomodu-latory. So we can use different effects of C. sinensis against different diseases and provide reference for the study of Cordyceps sinensis in the future. Y. Wang et al. investigated the effect of fermented mushroom of Cordyceps sinensis (CS) rich in selenium (Se-CS) on uterine cervical cancer in mice. Se-CS treatment (MCA and Se-0.4 group) showed a significant (P < 0.05–0.01) restoration in the level of the glutathione content, lipid peroxidation, glutathione peroxidase activity, glutathione reductase activity, catalase activity, Na+/K+-ATPase activity, and glutathione S transferase activity in MCA-induced tumor model (MCA-induced group). It may have helped the tissues recover from MCA injury. At the same time, Se-CS treatment (MCA and Se-0.4 group) results in significant reduction in the occurrence of cervical carcinomas (í µí±ƒ < 0.05) compared with the MCA-induced group. This finding suggested that the concomitant use of Se and CS could be a potential therapeutic …