Mycosphere Essays 15. Ganoderma lucidum - are the beneficial medical properties substantiated?.

[摘要] Ganoderma lucidum, commonly treated as Lingzhi mushroom, is a traditional Chinese medicine which has been widely used over two millennia in Asian countries for maintaining vivacity and longevity. Numerous publications can be found reporting that G. lucidum may possess various beneficial medical properties and contributes to a variety of biological actions by primary metabolites, such as polysaccharides, proteins and triterpenes. Although G. lucidum still remains as a popular agent in commercial products, there is a lack of scientific study on the safety and effectiveness of G. lucidum in humans. There have been some reports of human trials using G. lucidum as a direct control agent for various diseases including arthritis, asthma, diabetes, gastritis, hepatitis, hypertension and neurasthenia, but scientific evidence is still inconclusive. In this paper, we discuss various aspects pertaining to the beneficial medical properties of G. lucidum (excluding anti-cancer activities). In particular, we have addressed some of the loopholes in previous studies that support G. lucidum and its secondary metabolites as effective agents to treat various human diseases. Most of the clinical trials were successful with G. lucidum preparation, however factors like small sample size, lack of a placebo control group, lack of information regarding long term treatment of the drug, age, patient’s gender and side effects, standard method of extraction of G. lucidum, standard dosage, and number of patients treated undermine the validity of the results. Hence, G. lucidum can be used as a therapeutic drug when more direct and supportive scientific evidence are available in near future.

[学科分类] 植物学

[关键词] clinical evidence;Lingzhi;medicinal mushroom;secondary metabolites