Fans of Super Mario play with them. Doctors study them. Chefs all over the world cook with them. They appear overnight, disappear in the same way fast and leave no trace of their visit. Students of this world are called mycologists and now, the fungus will be viewed as a possible treatment for cancer, PTSD-post-traumatic stress disorder and some psychological disorders.

Mushrooms, sometimes called toadstools, are fleshy bodies of fungus that grow above ground on soil or on a food source. They’re separated from the plant world in a kingdom all their own called Myceteae because they do not contain chlorophyll like green plants.

Without the method of photosynthesis, some mushrooms obtain nutrients by deteriorating organic matter or by feeding from higher plants. They’re referred to as decomposers. Another sector attacks living plants to kill and consume them and they are called parasites. Edible and poisonous varieties are mycorrhizal and are observed on or near roots of trees such as for instance oaks, pines and firs.

For humans, mushrooms can do one of three things-nourish, heal or poison. Few are benign. The three most popular edible versions of this ‘meat of the vegetable world’ are the oyster, morel and chanterelles.

They’re used extensively in cuisine from China, Korea, Japan and India. In reality, China could be the world’s largest producer cultivating over 1 / 2 of all mushrooms consumed worldwide. Shroom chocolate  Most of the edible variety within our supermarkets have already been grown commercially on farms and include shiitake, portobello and enoki.

Eastern medicine, especially traditional Chinese practices, has used mushrooms for centuries. In the U.S., studies were conducted in the first ’60s for possible ways to modulate the immunity system and to inhibit tumor growth with extracts used in cancer research.

Mushrooms were also used ritually by the natives of Mesoamerica for a large number of years. Called the ‘flesh of the gods’ by Aztecs, mushrooms were widely consumed in religious ceremonies by cultures through the entire Americas. Cave paintings in Spain and Algeria depict ritualized ingestion dating back in terms of 9000 years. Questioned by Christian authorities on both parties of the Atlantic, psilocybin use was suppressed until Western psychiatry rediscovered it after World War II.

A 1957 article in Life Magazine titled “Seeking the Magic Mushroom” spurred the interest of America. The following year, a Swiss scientist named Albert Hofman, identified psilocybin and psilocin since the active compounds in the ‘magic’ mushrooms. This prompted the creation of the Harvard Psilocybin Project led by American psychologist Timothy Leary at Harvard University to study the consequences of the compound on humans.

In the quarter century that followed, 40,000 patients were given psilocybin and other hallucinogens such as for instance LSD and mescaline. More than 1,000 research papers were produced. Once the government took notice of the growing subculture available to adopting the employment, regulations were enacted.

The Nixon Administration began regulations, which included the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. What the law states created five schedules of increasing severity under which drugs were to be classified. Psilocybin was devote probably the most restrictive schedule I along with marijuana and MDMA. Each was defined as having a “high possibility of abuse, no currently acceptable medical use and too little accepted safety.”

This ended the investigation for nearly 25 years until recently when studies opened up for potential used in dealing with or resolving PTSD-post-traumatic stress disorder along with anxiety issues. As of June 2014, whole mushrooms or extracts have already been studied in 32 human clinical trials registered with the U.S. National Institutes of Health due to their potential effects on a number of diseases and conditions. Some maladies being addressed include cancer, glaucoma, immune functions and inflammatory bowel disease.

The controversial area of research is the use of psilocybin, a naturally occurring chemical using mushrooms. Its ability to simply help people experiencing psychological disorders such as for instance obsessive-compulsive disorder, PTSD and anxiety continue to be being explored. Psilocybin has already been shown to work in treating addiction to alcohol and cigarettes in some studies