Mushrooms and their effects on radiation

Email from Paul Stamets about Mushrooms and their effects on radiation:
(via Olympia Food Co-op)

Folks,

I am being flooded with requests about what mushrooms can do to help prevent damage from radioactivity. There is a lot of confusion, and not surprising, given the rapidly changing circumstances.

First, I think it is important not to exploit this disaster. The Japanese are the victims; we in North America are not.

Realistically, the radioactivity from the failure of the Japanese reactors poses virtually no significant threat to us here in North America. The plume will fan out and disperse before reaching our shore. Still not good, especially for those in close proximity.

This is a HUGE tragedy and puts into focus why nuclear power plants are not safe despite all the assurances. My father was a nuclear engineer, and the spent fuel storage issues (some of which are heating up now, by the way) are something about which he personally had concerns. The threat is significant for those people near the reactors and directly off the Japanese coastline. The drop off in radiation will be more than an inverse square of distance, which is huge considering the distance, before reaching North America.

That being said, mushrooms do help prevent oxidative stress from free radical exposure induced by radiation. Moreover, the melanin in mushrooms (the pigment that makes your skin darken due to light exposure) has the propensity to bind radioactive isotopes into less toxic forms, making them insoluble, so they can be partially purged. However, the studies of which I am aware are not based on human trials- these are lab based, so there is lots of room for speculation here. I doubt if mushrooms can help purge radioactivity once it is in the blood stream.

BUT, some mushrooms hyper accumulate radioactive compounds, and are stimulated in their growth! So yes, I would ingest mushrooms from North America to help augment your immune system. No, I would not eat mushrooms from the or near the fall-out in Japan, or anywhere near polluted areas, since they concentrate heavy metals, with cesium being one of them.

Do not panic.

Consume mushrooms in clean, unpolluted environments to help your immune system.

Cheers!

Paul Stamets