The Nutritional and Health Benefits of
The Nutritional and Health Benefits of
The Nutritional and Health Benefits of
292..299
P. C. K. Cheung
Food and Nutritional Sciences Programme, School of Life Sciences, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University Science Centre, Shatin, New Territories,
Hong Kong, China
Summary
Both wild and cultivated mushrooms have been consumed by humans for their
nutritional and medicinal benefits. Nutritionally, mushrooms are low in energy and
fat but high in protein, carbohydrate, and dietary fibre. Mushrooms contain a
variety of minerals and trace elements such as potassium, and copper and vitamins
such as riboflavin, niacin, and folates. They have been used as food for centuries
because of their unique taste. Apart from being recognised as a nutritious food,
certain mushrooms are also an important source of biologically active compounds
with potential additional medicinal value in Chinese medicine. Bioactive secondary
metabolites found in mushrooms include phenolic compounds, sterols and triterpenes. In vitro and in vivo studies with mushrooms and isolated bioactive constituents have purported many pharmacological effects such as anti-tumour,
antioxidant, antiviral, hypocholesterolemic and hypoglycaemic effects. Consumption of mushrooms or mushroom products in our daily diet may provide health
benefits.
Keywords: bioactive constituents, medicinal effects, mushrooms, nutritional values
Introduction
Mushrooms are fungi with distinctive fruiting bodies,
which are large enough to be seen with the naked eye
and to be picked by hand (Chang & Miles 1992).
Mushrooms can be broadly grouped into three categories: (1) edible; (2) medicinal; and (3) poisonous.
Edible mushrooms (mainly the fruiting body) can be
consumed either as flesh (e.g. Agaricus bisporus or
button mushroom) or dried (e.g. Lentinus edodes
or shiitake) or preserved in other ways. Medicinal
mushrooms are fungi not for culinary purposes but
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Table 1 Proximate composition of some common mushroom species that can be used as food and medicine*
Species
Common names
Crude protein
Crude fat
Carbohydrate
Crude fibre
Agaricus bisporus
Agaricus blazei
Auricularia auricula-judae
Boletus edulis
Cantharellus cibarius
Cordyceps sinensis
Ganoderma tsugae
Grifola frondosa
Hericium erinaceus
Lentinus edodes
Pleurotus ostreatus
Tremella fuciformis
Button mushroom
Murrills Agaricus
Black fungus or jelly ear
Cep
Chanterelle
Caterpillar fungus
Ling chih or Reishi
Maitake
Monkeyhead or bearded tooth
Shiitake
Oyster mushroom
White jelly fungus or silver ear
mushroom
Matsutake
Black truffle
Straw mushroom
23.934.8
26.7
8.1
29.7
21.5
21.9
8.8
21.1
22.3
13.417.5
10.530.4
4.6
1.78.0
2.6
1.5
3.1
5.0
8.2
5.7
3.1
3.5
4.98.0
1.62.2
0.2
51.362.5
45.5
81.0
51.7
64.9
24.2
10.4
58.8
57.0
67.578.0
57.681.8
94.8
8.010.4
18.3
6.9
8.0
11.2
n.d.||
73.4
10.1
7.8
7.38.0
7.58.7
1.4
16.1
23.3
30.1
4.3
2.2
6.4
70.1
66.2
50.9
4.5
27.9
11.9
Tricholoma giganteum
Tuber melanosporum
Vovariella volvacea
Ash
7.712.0
6.8
9.4
5.3
8.6
2.9
1.7
7.0
9.4
3.77.0
6.19.8
0.4
5.0
8.3
12.6
Reference
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Tsai et al. (2008)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Hsu et al. (2002)
Tseng et al. (2005)
Mau et al. (2001)
Mau et al. (2001)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Mau et al. (2001)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
Crisan and Sands (1978)
The nitrogen factor used for crude protein calculation was 4.38.
Proteins
In general, the crude protein content of edible mushrooms varies greatly and ranges from 15% to 35% of
dry weight (DW), depending on the species, varieties,
and stage of development of the fruiting body (Crisan &
Sands 1978; Longvah & Deosthale 1998; Manzi et al.
1999; Dez & Alvarez 2001; Mdachi et al. 2003). The
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P. C. K. Cheung
Lipids
Edible mushrooms are generally low in lipids (usually
less than 5% DW). Their fatty acid profile favours
unsaturated fatty acids, especially linoleic acids (688
840 mg/g lipid DW) (Cheung 1997; Longvah & Deosthale 1998; Dez & Alvarez 2001; Yang et al. 2002).
Although the level of linolenic acid is generally low in
mushrooms (Yilmaz et al. 2006), it contributes greatly
to the flavour of mushrooms because of its role as the
precursor to 1-octen-3-ol, which is the principal aromatic compound known as fungal alcohol in most
mushrooms (Maga 1981).
Carbohydrates
The total carbohydrate content of mushrooms, including digestible and non-digestible carbohydrate, varies
Vitamins
While little information on the vitamin contents of wild
mushrooms is available, data on cultivated mushrooms
show that they contain several vitamins including riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin, and folates in concentrations
that are species dependent and vary within the range of
1.85.1, 3165, and 0.300.64 mg/100 g DW, respectively (Mattila et al. 2001). The riboflavin content in
mushrooms is higher than that generally found in vegetables, and some varieties of A. bisporus have been
reported to have concentrations as high as those found
in eggs and cheese (Mattila et al. 2001). Cultivated
mushrooms contain niacin, but again, the content varies
from 34109 mg/100 g DW for P. ostreatus, 1299 mg/
100 g DW for L. edodes and 3657 mg/100 g DW for
A. bisporus (Crisan & Sands 1978; Bano & Rajarathnam 1986). Mushrooms contain moderately high
amounts of folates at concentrations that are generally
similar to those found in vegetables (Beelman &
Edwards 1989). Vitamin D is almost entirely absent in
cultivated mushrooms, but levels of ergosterol, the provitamin of ergocalciferol, are relatively high (400
600 mg/100 g DW). Ergocalciferol (provitamin D) can
be converted into vitamin D in the presence of sunlight
(Mattila et al. 2002). With the exception of folate,
studies on the bioavailability of vitamins from mushrooms are rare (Clifford et al. 1991).
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P. C. K. Cheung
Conclusion
Mushrooms are valuable resources for food, medicine
and nutraceuticals (Lakhanpal & Rana 2005). They
contain a large array of nutrients and other natural
phytochemicals that have a wide range of nutritional
and health benefits. These benefits will have potential
implications such as boosting the immune system, providing an anti-cancer function as well as controlling
blood lipids and glucose levels in humans. Given the
many mushroom species that have not yet been studied,
it is anticipated that new discoveries of the health benefits in mushrooms will continue and promising mushroom treatments and products for human diseases may
be found in the future (Wasser 2010).
Conflict of interest
The author has no conflict of interest to disclose.
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