Mushrooms, Green Tea & Breast Cancer

Mushrooms are not plants. They are the spore-producing organs of various types of fungi. There is evidence that eating mushrooms could help prevent breast cancer, but more research is needed in this area.
Green tea is an herbal drink made from a tropical shrub, Camellia sinensis. Scientific evidence supports various medical uses of green tea, including against breast cancer. Before you decide to use mushrooms, green tea or any other supplements, consult with your doctor first.

Hormonally Related Breast Cancer

Cell culture and animal studies reviewed by the University of Maryland Medical Center suggest that green tea provides a benefit to women with early detection of breast cancer that is estrogen receptor positive. These experiments, however, found no evidence of benefit from drinking green tea in patients with advanced-stage breast cancer.

NF-kappa-B

Green tea polyphenols appear to reduce the activation of the protein NF-kappa-B that functions as a tumor promoter in inflammation-associated breast cancer. Gail Sonenshein, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Turfs University have found that breast cancer cells treated with green tea polyphenols died because of the disruption to the normal functioning of NF-kappa-B.

Immune System Function

A weakened immune system can influence the risk of developing cancer. In a clinical study conducted at Thomas Jefferson University, researchers found that maitake mushrooms contain substances that can trigger an immune response causing the production of antibodies as part of the body's defense against breast cancer; however, more research is needed to strengthen this evidence.

MycoPhyto Complex

In a study by J. Jiang and D. Sliva at Methodist Research Institute in Indianapolis, mycophyto complex, or MC, a novel medicinal mushroom blend, showed a reduction in breast cancer risk. The results, published in "International Journal of Oncology" in December 2010, suggest that MC acts on highly proliferating breast tumor cells by initially arresting DNA synthesis and inducing cell cycle arrest.