National Taiwan University Professor Hsu Rui-xiang: Lingzhi mushrooms have made dementia-ridden mice smarter!

[Key Reminder] Professor Hsu Rui-xiang from National Taiwan University and his doctoral student, Chen Si-min, have confirmed that aqueous and alcoholic extracts of Ganoderma lucidum can slow down or even reverse the memory and cognitive decline caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Compared to Western medicine’s view that “Alzheimer’s is an irreversible process,” the effects of Ganoderma lucidum are truly remarkable. If you’re not already battling cancer, you certainly don’t want to become less intelligent, do you? So no matter what, everyone should remember to consume Ganoderma lucidum.

 

Professor Xu Ruixiang delivering a speech at the conference hall of the Six Fortunes Palace Hotel in Taipei on June 16, 2014. (Photo by Wu Tingyao)

 

A news report from June 9, 2014, indicated that in the past two years, 20,000 people in Japan had gone missing due to dementia, of whom 258 remain unaccounted for to this day. Given Japan’s famously meticulous standards, the fact that so many people are still missing is truly astonishing—let alone in other countries.

 

A news report on April 21 of the same year detailed how Taiwan’s well-known host, Li Yanqiu, was deeply distressed about not having noticed earlier that her mother was suffering from dementia. The symptoms she described sounded truly astonishing: Her mother would sit by the bathtub, completely unaware of how to take a bath.

 

A friend of mine put it very aptly: He said his dad was holding a remote control in his hand but didn’t have the slightest idea what “this thing” was for. It sounds kind of funny, yet when an elderly family member starts behaving this way, you really don’t know whether to laugh or cry. It’s truly awful when a father starts asking his son every day, “Who are you?” or “Why are you here?”—or even goes out and never comes home, completely forgetting where his own house is.

 

Dementia is an inevitable issue in an aging society.

 

In an aging society, as people’s lifespans lengthen and many diseases can be alleviated or delayed, the number of people suffering from dementia is actually on the rise. It’s impossible to estimate precisely how many people already show signs of cognitive decline but whose symptoms aren’t yet obvious. Just like a person who hasn’t been diagnosed with a tumor doesn’t mean they’re completely free of cancer cells—there’s a good chance the cancer simply hasn’t been detected yet.

The so-called “dementia” refers to a “progressive decline in cognitive function” caused by brain injury or disease—a decline that far exceeds the normal aging process. Therefore, dementia is not a single disease but rather a “syndrome” encompassing a range of symptoms. For example, memory impairment can affect various cognitive functions such as language, spatial awareness, and arithmetic skills, and these impairments gradually worsen as the condition progresses.

 

“Dementia” is different from “natural aging.”

 

“Dementia” is different from “natural aging.” When an elderly person suddenly forgets something but then recalls it once they’ve calmed down, that’s a sign of natural aging. In contrast, dementia means that the person simply can’t recall it at all anymore. So, during tests, while people experiencing natural aging may not be able to remember everything perfectly, they’ll still recall some parts; with dementia, however, they’ll have completely lost all memory.

 

Dementia can be classified into early, middle, and late stages, depending on the severity of the condition. By the late stage, the person has essentially “completely transformed into a different individual,” losing all ability to care for themselves and becoming entirely dependent on others for daily needs. It may well be that when someone forgets everything, that’s actually one of the happiest periods of their life—but only if their descendants are filial! The consequences of unfilial descendants, however, can be truly tragic.

 

“Mid-term” symptoms fluctuate—sometimes good, sometimes bad. For example, the person often forgets where they’ve put things; frequently searches for items they’ve misplaced; makes plans with friends but fails to show up; forgets what they’ve just said; can’t recall recent events; or even forgets whether they’ve eaten or taken a shower. Actually, these symptoms are already somewhat serious—but at this stage, both the patient and their family members often don’t realize that they’re related to dementia.

 

Alzheimer's disease mortality has increased by 40% over the past decade.

 

Dementia can be broadly categorized into two main types: “vascular dementia” and “degenerative dementia.” The former is caused by blockages or lesions in blood vessels, while the latter results from damage to brain nerve function. Among these, the most common form of degenerative dementia is that caused by “Alzheimer's disease (AD).”

 

Why has Alzheimer’s disease received so much attention in recent years? According to statistics compiled by the United States from 2000 to 2010, thanks to advances in the pharmaceutical industry, many previously deadly diseases have been brought under very good control—for example, mortality rates from cancer and cardiovascular diseases have dropped by 30% over the past decade. Yet, paradoxically, mortality from Alzheimer’s disease has actually risen by 40%.

 

Therefore, Alzheimer’s disease is bound to become a leading cause of death for humanity in the future, and ensuring that these patients receive excellent care and treatment is currently a key goal for the medical community.

 

The physician who first identified Alzheimer’s disease was a German doctor with the surname “Alzheimer.” The image below shows his very first patient, whose expression appears remarkably calm—sitting there alone, completely unaware of what’s going on.

 

He actually has dementia. Obvious characteristics include: memory impairment, difficulties recognizing time, place, and people, cognitive deficits in two or more domains, progressive deterioration, and— Reversible means that Alzheimer’s disease will only continue to worsen, with no possibility of improvement or recovery.

 

Because Alzheimer’s disease causes damage to brain neurons, computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging can reveal obvious damage to the hippocampus in the brains of affected patients. Autopsies of diseased brains show phenomena such as neurofibrillary tangles and beta-amyloid plaques. The most famous case of Alzheimer’s disease is that of former U.S. President Reagan, who lived approximately 8 to 10 years between his diagnosis and his death.

 

 

The first documented case of Alzheimer’s disease in medical literature was that of Madame Auguste Deter. In 1901, at the age of 51, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Frankfurt. The attending physician, Dr. Alzheimer, observed that she suffered from short-term memory loss and exhibited unusual behavioral patterns. (Image source: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

Dr. Chen Simin, whom I supervise, passed his doctoral dissertation defense in May 2014. His research primarily explores the effects of treating mice with brain damage induced by aluminum chloride using extracts from the fruiting bodies of Ganoderma tsugae.

 

The experiment was designed as follows: To quickly induce Alzheimer’s disease in the experimental rats, we administered a large dose of aluminum ions—specifically, aluminum chloride—at 500 mg/kg per day for five consecutive months.

 

After entering the body, aluminum ions bind to certain specific amino acids and then deposit in the cerebral blood vessels during circulation, leading to tangles in the brain's nerve fibers. Thus, this pattern of brain damage is essentially similar to that seen in Alzheimer's disease.

 

To determine whether mice that have ingested large amounts of aluminum ions have become less intelligent, we conducted a “water maze” experiment to assess their memory abilities. We identified mice with impaired memory and then fed them either an aqueous extract or an alcoholic extract of Lingzhi mushroom for nine weeks. Afterward, we retested them using the water maze to see whether their cognitive performance had improved. This approach allowed us to evaluate whether Lingzhi is effective. In addition, we used computed tomography (CT) scans to examine the brains of the mice and gain insight into the mechanisms behind Lingzhi’s effectiveness.

 

 

 

 

The water maze used in the experiment is a swimming pool with a diameter of 180 centimeters and a water depth of 75 centimeters. It’s divided into four quadrants, and a platform is placed in the fourth quadrant (as shown in the figure below). Since mice naturally dislike water, when they’re put into the swimming pool, they’ll definitely not be happy to splash around in the water—they’ll immediately start looking for a place to rest. Once they’ve circled around and found the platform, they’ll climb up onto it and squat down.

 

The “water maze test” is a method frequently used by scientists to assess the learning, memory, and cognitive abilities of mice. In this Alzheimer’s disease study, the “water maze” is a swimming pool with a diameter of 180 centimeters and a water depth of 75 centimeters. A platform is placed in the fourth quadrant. Leveraging the mice’s aversion to water—and their tendency to climb onto the platform for rest once they find it—researchers can determine whether the mice’s memory and cognitive functions have declined or improved. (Photo/Ye Hongjun)

 

At the start of the experiment, the mice are first given practice. Then, the platform is removed, and the mice are released into the water. If they have a good memory, they’ll swim toward the fourth quadrant where the platform used to be; if they’re clumsy, they’ll just swim around aimlessly.

 

How do we tell whether a mouse is swimming randomly or purposefully? Every time a mouse swims, a camera above it records its swimming trajectory. Thus, computer software can calculate how long each mouse swims and the exact times it spends in each quadrant. By analyzing this data, we can gain insights into the mouse’s memory and cognitive abilities.

 

The mice participating in the experiment were divided into four groups: One group consisted of normal mice that had not been exposed to aluminum ions; the other two groups had been induced with Alzheimer’s disease by consuming aluminum ions and were then administered either aqueous or alcoholic extracts of Ganoderma lucidum; the fourth group comprised mice with Alzheimer’s disease who had been exposed to aluminum ions but received no treatment whatsoever.

 

In the water maze experiment, the shorter the swimming time, the faster the mice could find the platform—and the smarter their brains were. Among the two groups of Alzheimer’s disease mice, those fed Reishi mushroom showed swimming times that were comparable to those of normal mice; in contrast, Alzheimer’s disease mice that received no treatment at all took swimming times that were three to four times longer than those of the Reishi-fed group.

 

In terms of distance traveled, the Alzheimer’s disease mice swam the farthest—after searching for a long time, they finally located the platform. By contrast, the other groups found the platform much more quickly. This result demonstrates that after suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and consuming Reishi mushroom for over two months, the mice’s memory ability returned to nearly normal levels. This constitutes the first evidence that Reishi mushroom can help improve Alzheimer’s disease.

 

The second experiment involved removing the platform and observing, through the mice’s swimming trajectories, whether they could remember where the platform had been located. The results showed:

 

The normal mice swam to the fourth quadrant the fastest and stayed there the longest, because they knew—and were certain—that the platform was right here. In contrast, the Alzheimer’s mice seemed to be constantly on the fence, appearing both “as if” and “as if not.” By comparison, the Alzheimer’s mice that had been fed Reishi mushroom showed much greater confidence. These findings suggest that Reishi mushroom can improve the cognitive judgment abilities of Alzheimer’s mice.

 

 

 

 

We used the two experiments mentioned above to determine that Lingzhi indeed made Alzheimer’s disease–type dementia mice smarter. This provides behavioral evidence, but such evidence alone isn’t sufficient, since behavior can fluctuate unpredictably. Therefore, we also used an MRI scanner to measure blood flow velocity in the mice’s brains. The faster the blood flow, the better the supply of oxygen and nutrients—and the smarter the mice become. In particular, the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory and learning, offers especially significant insights into blood flow conditions.

 

The scan results revealed that the cerebral blood flow velocity in Alzheimer's disease mice was significantly slower than in normal mice. However, in Alzheimer's disease mice that had been administered either aqueous or alcoholic extracts of Ganoderma lucidum, the cerebral blood flow velocity in various brain regions—including the hippocampus—was much closer to that of normal mice. From this, it can be inferred that part of Ganoderma lucidum’s ability to improve memory and cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease is achieved by “enhancing cerebral blood supply.”

 

In addition to blood rheology, the causes of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease also include nerve damage. Therefore, we also assessed the levels of neurotransmitters in the brains of mice. The results showed that Alzheimer’s disease leads to a reduction in brain neurotransmitter levels. With fewer neurotransmitters, the conduction ability weakens, and signal transmission becomes intermittent. However, after administering Ganoderma lucidum extract, the levels of neurotransmitters in the brain significantly increased.

 

In addition, we conducted scans of the vascular tissue in the brains of mice. The results showed that in normal mice, the microvasculature in the brain was densely distributed, indicating an adequate supply of oxygen and nutrients to brain cells. In contrast, the cerebral vasculature in Alzheimer’s disease mice appeared somewhat sparse. Although Alzheimer’s disease mice that had been fed Reishi mushroom did not achieve the same level of vascular density as normal mice, their vascular distribution was still significantly better than that of Alzheimer’s disease mice alone.

 

Discontinuing Lingzhi will cause the condition to worsen again.

 

The results of this series of experiments all point to one thing: For Alzheimer’s disease that has already developed, both the water extract and the alcohol extract of Ganoderma lucidum can help the diseased brain return to a normal state. Moreover, not only do memory and cognitive functions improve, but also parameters such as cerebral blood flow velocity, blood viscosity, circulation, and nerve conduction all show marked improvement.

 

However, once the dementia symptoms improved after taking Lingzhi, does that mean we can now look forward to a happy and fulfilling life ahead—and simply say “Thanks for everything, let’s stay in touch” to Lingzhi? To understand the effects of discontinuing Lingzhi, in addition to euthanizing most of the mice and collecting blood samples from their bodies for biochemical analysis, as well as dissecting their brains to examine amyloid plaques, we also kept several mice alive to observe what would happen after they stopped taking Lingzhi.

 

By the 8th week, the mice that had initially been protected by Lingzhi but later discontinued its use showed blood flow rates in their brains that were already very close to those of Alzheimer’s disease mice that hadn’t received any treatment at all. Moreover, as time went on, the conditions of these two groups became increasingly similar. This suggests that discontinuing Lingzhi can cause the Alzheimer’s disease—which had previously shown improvement—to worsen again. Therefore, once you’ve started taking Lingzhi and noticed an improvement, be sure to keep using it consistently; otherwise, your cognitive function could deteriorate once more.

 

Reishi mushrooms make you younger, help you live longer, and also make you smarter.

 

Overall, reishi mushroom truly has the potential to slow down or even reverse the pathological progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Compared to Western medicine’s assertion that “Alzheimer’s is an irreversible process,” the effects of reishi mushroom are nothing short of astonishing.

 

You don’t want to get cancer—and you certainly don’t want to become less intelligent, do you? So no matter what, everyone should remember to consume reishi mushrooms. But which kind of reishi product is the right choice? At the very least, it should meet the following criteria: grown and processed by the producer themselves, certified by national authorities, and proven effective for many people who’ve tried it.

 

Zhang Shuting, an internationally renowned mycologist and honorary professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, mentioned in the closing remarks of the 5th International Conference on Medicinal Mushrooms that the development of Ganoderma products aims to help humanity “become healthier, more relaxed, and happier.” Here’s the Chinese translation: “look younger and live longer”—in other words, to make you look younger and live longer. If Professor Zhang has the chance to hear my presentation in the future and learns that Ganoderma can also help improve Alzheimer’s disease, he might even add a fourth benefit: “be smart.”

 

[About the Speaker / Xu Ruixiang]

In 1990, she earned a Ph.D. from the Institute of Agricultural Chemistry at National Taiwan University with a dissertation titled “A Study on the Identification System for Ganoderma Strains,” becoming the first Chinese-speaking doctoral graduate in Ganoderma research. She currently serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Biochemical Technology at National Taiwan University, editor-in-chief of the journal "Healthy Ganoderma," founder of the Ganoderma News Network, and a director of the International Ganoderma Research Society.

★ This article is excerpted from Ganoderma News Network www.ganodermanews.com with the author’s permission. Any unauthorized reproduction of this article without the author’s consent is prohibited.