What The Heck Are Natural Statins?

Statins work by blocking a substance your body needs to make cholesterol, according to the Mayo Clinic.  There are numerous medications that fall under the category of statins.  Some of the well known medications are atorvastatin (Lipitor), simvastatin (Zocor), lovastatin (Mevacor), pravastatin (Pravachol), and rosuvastatin (Crestor).  Statins are drugs that can lower your cholesterol.

There are also what are considered by many to be natural statins and those natural stains include medicinal mushrooms, such as shitake, oyster mushrooms, and wood ear fungi.  The Asians are very heavily into adding mushrooms to their diet, hence most of the  studies that I have found take place in Japan.  The Chinese refer to mushrooms as "meat without a bone."  I have read that wood ear also contains small amounts of adenosine, which may be a blood thinner.  The statin, Lovastatin, is producted by the culinary-medicinal oyster mushroom and the the oyster mushroom is 30% protein by weight.

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The Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Shizuoka in Japan found that the supplementation of the 3 edible mushrooms prevents the development of atherosclerosis.  Atherosclerosis is when plaque builds up inside the walls of your arteries, otherwise known as hardening of the arteries.

Mushroom hunting also happens to be a popular pastime in Slovakia, where I found another study took place.  The Institute of Human Nutrition Research at the Faculty of Biotechnologies in Bratislava, Slovakia, found that the consumption of the mushroom-containing diet prevented serum cholesterol increase which was manifested at the end of the 4th week of the experiment. At the end of the 7th week of the experiment the cholesterolemia was lowered by almost 40% as compared with control animals kept on the same diet but without the mushroom.

The studies are few and they seem to be older than 10 years old and the big catch is the studies only take place with mice and rats.  It appears that mushrooms, or even mushroom powder, are very healthy to eat, even though no studies have been done on humans.

             

 You can even start your own edible mushroom farm!


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