AEGiS-GMHC: Common Alternative Therapies: Shiitake Mushrooms

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1993. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Common Alternative Therapies: Shiitake Mushrooms

Gay Men's Health Crisis: Treatment Issues, Volume 7 no. 11/12 - Winter, 1993/94
Bree Scott-Hartland

Shiitake Mushrooms (Lentinan edodes) are a traditional Oriental herbal remedy (and currently a popular haute cuisine ingredient) and being used in the process of making LEM (Lentinan edodes mycelia). LEM is the active component incubated in water to allow digestion of mycelial enzymes. The digest of mycelia enzymes is extracted with water, filtered, sterilized and concentrated into a powder. The LEM powder is put into ethyl alcohol and freeze-dried to become ethanol-precipitated LEM or E-P-LEM.

Japanese researchers report that pretreatment of T cell cultures with .4mg/ml. E-P-LEM protects them from both free-viral and cell-to-cell HIV infection without cell viability. Pretreatment of HIV with a .5mg/ml of E-P-LEM made it unable to infect cells at all. The researchers suggest that E-P-LEM interferes in HIV interaction with the cellular CD receptor.

These were test tube studies done in Japan, however, and as yet there are no human trials planned in the US.

1. Tochikura TS, et al. Med. Microb. & Immun., 1988; 177:235-44.

Copyright (c) 1993 - Gay Men's Health Crisis. All rights reserved. Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged.
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Copyright © 1993 - Treatment Issues. Reproduced with permission. Treatment Issues is published twelve times yearly by GMHC, Inc. All rights reserved. Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged. Subscription lists are kept confidential. GMHC Treatment Issues, The Tisch Building, 119 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 fredg@gmhc.org http://www.gmhc.org

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