Although there have been some animal and cell experiments on Ganoderma lucidum preventing or improving Parkinson’s disease (for example, an article published in 2019: “Ganoderma lucidum extract ameliorates MPTP-induced parkinsonism and protects dopaminergic neurons from oxidative stress via regulating mitochondrial function, autophagy, and apoptosis”), the actual effect on patients mostly stays in word of mouth, and the relevant scientific literature is always lacking.

In July of this year (2021), Associate Professor Kim PC Kuypers from the Department of Neuropsychology and Psychopharmacology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands published an article entitled "Self-Medication with Ganoderma lucidum ("Reishi") to Combat Parkinson's Disease Symptoms: A Single Case Study”, finally filling this long-lost scientific gap.

The subject wanted to know if Ganoderma lucidum was effective for him.

The subject involved in this study is a 50-year-old patient with Parkinson’s disease who has been onset for 5 years. He has never received formal treatment and has been trying to control his symptoms through stress reduction, exercise and diet since he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in April 2014.

He has tried many alternative therapies, some of which stopped halfway (boxing with sandbags, for example, lasted less than 3 months due to overload on his shoulders), and some continued when he was in contact with Ganoderma lucidum (April 2019), such as meditation, yoga, walking in nature and taking multivitamins, coenzyme Q10 (needed for cells to function properly), Mucuna prurien (a leguminous plant that contains dopamine precursors) and other health products.

By the time the subject wanted to add Reishi to these treatments, his physical condition had progressed from trembling fingers at the initial stage of onset to one side of the limb being stiff manifested as dragging his feet a bit while walking and sometimes requiring crutches.

However, his expectation of Ganoderma lucidum was mainly not in the physical symptoms, but he wanted to know whether it would bring him the “enlightenment” experienced by another patient, and he wanted to test whether he could also gain clarity in his brain.

After deciding to give Ganoderma lucidum a "probation period" of 3 months, this highly assertive subject took the initiative to contact the author (researcher) of this paper, expecting to evaluate the benefits of Ganoderma lucidum on him with the assistance of professionals as a reference for him to decide whether to "formally use Ganoderma lucidum" in the future.

Researcher: Orthodox medicine has limitations, and alternative therapies are in demand.

Although the researcher who received the task did not specialize in Ganoderma lucidum, he thought it was a good opportunity to understand how much Ganoderma lucidum can help patients with Parkinson's disease.

As the researcher mentioned in the article, after all, current drug treatments are mainly focused on alleviating "motor symptoms", and it is difficult to deal with cognitive and emotional disorders related to "non-motor symptoms".

However, non-motor symptoms can affect the severity and rate of deterioration of motor symptoms. Even the use of drugs originally used to treat motor symptoms can cause other motor symptoms (such as involuntary muscle twitching) and non-motor symptoms (such as addictive or repetitive behavior), forming more vicious circles.

Therefore, in reality, other adjuvant therapies are indeed needed to make up for the limitations of existing drugs. Ganoderma lucidum, which has a relevant research foundation and a high level of food safety, is obviously an option worth observing.

The effect of taking 500mg of Ganoderma lucidum extract daily for 3 months

This research plan was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Review Committee Psychology and Neuroscience from Maastricht University (ERCPN 207_08_04_2019), indicating that this is a "very formal" clinical observation study, which is relatively rare in the field of Ganoderma lucidum, so even only one subject is also of great reference value.

The subject took a 500 mg Ganoderma lucidum extract capsule (containing 150 mg Ganoderma lucidum polysaccharides) every day. With the assistance of the researcher, he was evaluated by questionnaires before the test and after 1 month and 3 months of taking Ganoderma lucidum.

In addition to the specific “motor symptoms” and “non-motor symptoms” of Parkinson’s disease, the evaluation indicators also included “quality of life”, “self-compassion” and “emotion regulation ability” that could affect patients’ motor and non-motor symptoms. The content and results of the evaluation are detailed in the figure and table below.

On the whole, after the subject ate Ganoderma lucidum for 3 months, the "motor symptoms" and "non-motor symptoms" remained stable without much change -- apparently relatively good news for Parkinson's disease, which cannot be reversed or cured.

The "quality of life" had improved slightly but not significantly (Figure A). Although the "emotion regulation ability" had regressed slightly, three of the sub-items (implementation of goal-oriented behavior, impulse control, and emotion regulation skills) had improved at the end of the test, but the improvement had not returned to the level before the test (Figure C).

For "Self-compassion" that helps reduce psychological stress, ease anxiety and depression, the overall score had also improved slightly but not significantly. However, what is remarkable was that the sub-item "Self-kindness" maintained a high score before and after the test, and the other sub-item "Being able to be objectively aware of one’s current thoughts and feelings with an accepting mentality (Mindfullness)" jumped from the middle score before the test to the highest full score (Figure B), which became the most significant progress in the test.

As for the subject's mood, sleep and defecation, they are not correlated with Ganoderma lucidum, but mood and sleep will affect each other - when the quality of sleep is poor, the mood is not good.

[Note] The Self-compassion scale was created by Associate Professor Kristin Neff from the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. It is often used to measure an individual's self-compassion degree when encountering negative situations such as pain and frustration. Self-compassion includes three core contents, two of which are self-kindness and mindfulness. In addition to being translated as "awareness" or "awareness of the present", Mindfulness is also translated as "contemplation". Its main meaning is detailed in the table below.

The subject: Brain seems "less stuck" after 2 weeks of taking Ganoderma lucidum.

In addition to the above evaluation, the researcher also assisted the patients to score the therapeutic effect of Ganoderma lucidum from four aspects through the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire at the end of the study: Effectiveness; Side Effects; Convenience; and Global Satisfaction; scores are expressed as a percentage. The scores of the patient were 60% (Effectiveness), 100% (Convenience), 85% (Global Satisfaction), and the Side Effects were not applicable.

As for what the subject expected Ganoderma lucidum to do for his brain before the test, he began to feel some of them after taking Ganoderma lucidum for about two weeks:

The subject stated to be less panicked, although he acknowledged that this could be due to the self-medication or the increased calmness in his life.

He did not experience motor changes but stated that the time to conclude that something is not working went faster. For example, he states:“When eating with a fork is difficult, the solution to take the fork in the other hand, comes quickly to mind.”

"Eating Ganoderma lucidum" also has a similar effect to "meditation"?

In order to have a more objective understanding of the subjects’ condition, the researcher compared the questionnaire scores of the subject after 3 months of taking Ganoderma lucidum with the scores of Parkinson’s disease patients receiving regular medication.

The results showed that the scores of the subject for "motor symptoms" and "non-motor symptoms" were similar to those of patients with 8.3 years of illness; the scores of the subject for "quality of life" were quite similar to those of patients with 6.7 years of illness.

That is to say, for the subject who had been sick for 5 years and 3 months, since he excluded regular treatment and only relied on alternative therapies (including taking Ganoderma lucidum for the 3 months) for self-treatment, the deterioration of his motor symptoms, non-motor symptoms and quality of life is faster than that of regular medication users.

Interestingly, the subject’s “self-compassion” ability did not decrease proportionally with physical disabilities and quality of life. Not only were his overall scores comparable to those of Parkinson’s patients receiving regular medications, but his scores of “Self-kindness” and "Mindfulness" were comparable to those of a meditator sample.

It seems that there are not many research discourses on the positive relationship between "Self-kindness" and Parkinson's disease. Instead, there are quite a lot of scientific discussions about "Mindfulness" that helps Parkinson's disease.

For example, the research report published this year (2021)in NPJ Parkinson's Disease, a subJournal of Nature, proved through a large-scale patient survey that the improvement of “Mindfulness” for anxiety and depression can help ease Parkinson's disease-related symptoms.

Although the subject had practiced the meditation habit before taking Ganoderma lucidum, his score of "Mindfulness" improved from medium to full score only after taking Ganoderma lucidum for 3 months. Therefore, it is curious whether eating Ganoderma lucidum also has a similar or enhanced effect of meditation. Perhaps, Ganoderma lucidum's "sedation and tranquilization" really played a role in it.

About the appropriate dosage of Ganoderma lucidum

The researcher stated in the paper that although this study cannot make specific conclusions on whether Ganoderma lucidum is beneficial to the treatment of Parkinson’s disease - after all, the number of subjects is 1, which is more like a personal experience - but given the subject's slight improvement in mental and emotional well-being, the evidence of Ganoderma lucidum in animal and cell experiments, and the demand for adjuvant therapy in reality, the researcher believes that it is necessary to conduct clinical trials with "placebo as a control group" to further confirm Ganoderma lucidum's safety and effectiveness for patients with Parkinson's disease.

Regardless of whether the results of the subject can be reproduced by other patients, this study has opened up a path for patients with Parkinson's disease to objectively evaluate the efficacy of Ganoderma lucidum, which allows those who intend to try it to follow.

It is worth mentioning that from the subject's taking of a 500 mg Ganoderma lucidum extract (containing 150 mg polysaccharides) capsule per day, it can be inferred that the subject apparently regarded Ganoderma lucidum as a pure vitamin or coenzyme Q10 and did not understand the peculiarities of the multiple components of Ganoderma lucidum. It may take a higher dose of Ganoderma lucidum to be effective.

Taking the animal experiment of Ganoderma lucidum improving Parkinson’s disease movement disorders published in 2019 by Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University mentioned at the beginning of the article as an example, the effective dose of Ganoderma lucidum extract taken by mice every day is 400 mg/kg (polysaccharide 10 %, ganoderic acid A and ergosterol are 0.3%～0.4% each). Mouse dose = Human dose/60 kg × 9.01. A 60 kg adult should daily take at least 2500 mg Ganoderma lucidum extract (containing 250 mg of polysaccharides plus 1.2-1.6 mg of ganoderic acid A and ergosterol), which may have similar anti-Parkinson's effects in animal experiments.

In fact, Xuanwu Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing mentioned in the report that the reason why they would do animal experiments was that they had previously given a daily dose of "4g (4000 mg)" Ganoderma lucidum extract to patients with stage 1 to 4 Parkinson's disease. After 2 years of follow-up, it was found that it did delay the deterioration of dyskinesia. Only then did they want to further understand the mechanism of Ganoderma lucidum through animal experiments. Although this human experiment was finally only mentioned in the animal research report without a formal publication, the human consumption dose stated in it is still worthy of reference.

But speaking of it, if this Dutch subject eats 500 mg of Ganoderma lucidum extract a day, if he gains clarity in his brain in 2 weeks, if he can have the mindfulness like healthy people who practise meditation in 3 months, the long-term effect of Ganoderma lucidum on Parkinson's disease patients can be really exciting!

How many possibilities are there in Ganoderma lucidum? You have to try it before you know.

Just as the researcher asked the subject at the beginning of the experiment why he wanted to eat Ganoderma lucidum. In addition to expressing "curiosity about its effect on the brain", the subject also said, "There is no harm in trying".

"There is no harm in trying" has always been the greatest advantage of Ganoderma lucidum. This is how many of the effects of Ganoderma lucidum have been discovered, and only with the backing of safety, the effect obtained from eating is the real gain beneficial to health.

We are always trying to find an acceptable balance in bargaining with fate. If you have the opportunity to reduce your physical and mental suffering without harm, why not give yourself a chance to "try it without harm?" Who knows, this small tentative step maybe develop into a big step!

References

1. Kim P.C. Kuypers. Self-Medication with Ganoderma lucidum (“Reishi”) to Combat Parkinson's Disease Symptoms: A Single Case Study. J Med Food. 2021 Jul 19; 24(7):766-773. doi: 10.1089/jmf.2020.0137.

2. KRISTIN D. NEFF. The Development and Validation of a Scale to Measure Self-Compassion. Self and Identity, 2003; 2(3): 223-250.

3. Anouk van der Heide, et al. Stress and mindfulness in Parkinson's disease - a survey in 5000 patients. NPJ Parkinsons Dis. 2021 Jan 18;7(1):7.

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