A Special Article by Professor Hsu Rui-xiang of National Taiwan University: In the Post-Pandemic Era, It’s Even More Important to Consume Lingzhi Mushroom.

Oral Review/ Xu Ruixiang; Interview and Compilation/ Wu Tingyao

★This article was originally published in installments under the series “In the Post-Pandemic Era, It’s Even More Important to Consume Ganoderma” on the Ganoderma News Network. With the author’s permission and consent, selected excerpts from this series have been reprinted and republished.

If immunity isn't good, how could the vaccine be effective?

“Getting vaccinated” is undoubtedly the hottest topic lately, but have you ever wondered: What exactly is the essence of a vaccine?

The nature of vaccines can be divided into two types: one is similar to a cancer vaccine, in which antibodies injected into the body can directly eliminate cancer cells.

The other type is the viral vaccine: It introduces a “hypothetical enemy” to allow your immune system to practice how to fight it. By the time the real enemy arrives, your immune system will already be fully prepared to eliminate it at the very first line of defense. This is precisely the preventive concept behind viral vaccines.

In other words, the COVID-19 vaccine doesn't directly kill the virus; rather, it uses a hypothetical “enemy” to stimulate the body’s own immune response.

The key point is this: When we create a hypothetical enemy today and deliver it into the human body through various means, who will be responsible for identifying that hypothetical enemy?

Of course, it’s the immune system (immune cells).

Your immune system must first recognize that “it’s not one of our own” before it can go on to treat it as a hypothetical enemy and practice military drills against it.

In other words, for whom will the vaccine be effective, and for whom will it be ineffective?

If your immune system itself is imbalanced and dysfunctional—or if it’s made up of a group of elderly, weak, and disabled individuals lacking both the ability to recognize threats and the capacity to fight—then even if you were to bring the hypothetical enemy right in front of you, you still wouldn’t be able to train your troops!

So, first fine-tune your immune system—only then will it be fully prepared to respond when the vaccine is administered. Otherwise, no matter how good the vaccine is, it won’t be able to help you.

Lingzhi is an edible vaccine adjuvant.

All vaccines include adjuvants, which act like pathfinders—pioneers that stir up the “enemy” in advance, alerting the immune system to be on guard. Only then do they effectively deliver the “enemy” right into the immune system’s grasp, allowing the entire immune army to be mobilized and achieving a truly effective training outcome, rather than merely training just a few kittens or small cats.

Therefore, the effectiveness of a vaccine is often closely linked to its adjuvant. No matter how competent the hypothetical “enemy” may be, an ineffective adjuvant will simply be useless.

Anything that can initiate or enhance an immune response can serve as an adjuvant.

Lingzhi is an adjuvant that can enhance the effectiveness of vaccines. Not only can it exert its adjuvant effects simply by being consumed (rather than administered via injection), but it’s also very safe.

The reason we emphasize the safety of Ganoderma lucidum is that many adverse reactions following vaccination are actually caused by allergies to the adjuvants contained in the vaccine.

Different ethnic groups—and even different individuals—react differently to adjuvants.

If your immune system has always been normal, of course it’s not easy for anything to go wrong. But if your immune system was already imbalanced or dysregulated to begin with, the adjuvant could trigger an abnormal immune response and lead to an allergic reaction.

So, while you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, make sure to enjoy some lingzhi mushrooms!

First, use reishi mushroom to fine-tune the immune system so that it won’t be triggered or activated randomly. At the same time, use reishi mushroom to ensure that the immune army remains highly disciplined, enabling it to conduct effective drills against the hypothetical adversaries posed by the vaccine.

And now, when there’s still no vaccine available, it’s even more important to eat Reishi mushrooms regularly—this will help strengthen your immune system’s ability to recognize and defend against all kinds of viruses, bacteria, and even cancer cells. Only by first cultivating inner integrity and self-reliance can you truly be prepared and worthy to wait for the day when a vaccine becomes available!

You can’t choose the vaccine—pick whatever reishi mushroom you like!

As for which vaccine to get, you actually don’t have any choice at all—you’ll just have to wait and see what’s allocated to you.

But with Lingzhi, you not only get to choose whether or not to eat it, but you can also choose which brand to buy.

The vaccine is just a tiny flicker of candlelight in the darkness. The closer you get to that flicker, the dimmer it seems to become—so you end up searching for another light source. But actually, you’ve had a flashlight right beside you all along—why on earth have you been so reluctant to turn it on?

Afraid the vaccine might lose effectiveness? Take lingzhi to boost your immune system.

If you think that getting the COVID-19 vaccine will allow you to rest easy from now on, you’re counting your chickens before they hatch.

A vaccine can only teach the immune system to recognize a specific virus.

The problem is that viruses are bound to make mistakes during replication, and in their struggle for survival against the immune system, they’ll go to great lengths to disguise and camouflage themselves. Once their appearance mutates to the point where the immune system can no longer recognize them, the immune system will no longer be able to detect and neutralize them.

It’s just like the facial recognition system on your smartphone. When you first buy the phone, you teach it to recognize you—simply by scanning your face, it can unlock itself. But once you put on a mask, your phone might still manage to recognize you, albeit with some difficulty. However, when you’re wearing a mask, a hat, and sunglasses all at once, no matter how many times you try to scan your face, your phone simply won’t recognize you anymore.

In other words, when the immune system is forced by a vaccine to learn how to recognize a virus that lands from the sea, once that virus disguises itself and parachutes down from the sky, the relatively clueless immune system might just mistake it for one of its own—after all, isn’t it the “virus that lands from the sea” that’s the enemy?

So, the more precise a vaccine is, the less useful it actually becomes—because a single vaccine can only target one specific enemy.

Suppose the COVID-19 vaccine you received today is highly effective—this would mean your immune system would recognize the COVID-19 virus with remarkable precision, and all your immune cells would be on high alert, fully prepared to fight it. But what if, in the end, the original virus never shows up, and instead a new variant of the coronavirus emerges? If your immune system can’t recognize this new variant at all, wouldn’t that be a real disaster?

Moreover, the world isn't just facing the coronavirus—there are many other viruses, bacteria, and cancer cells out there as well. It's possible that these other threats weren't particularly formidable to begin with, but because vaccines have mobilized the immune system into a full-scale defensive posture aimed at fighting the coronavirus, the immune system might inadvertently overlook other lurking enemies, giving them the opportunity to strike.

So never, under any circumstances, think that since there’s a vaccine available, you can stop taking Lingzhi!

Even after getting vaccinated, it’s still important to take lingzhi to activate other “non-specific” immune cells, thus preventing gaps in the immune system. Only then can we ensure comprehensive protection—avoiding the situation where one aspect is neglected while another is overemphasized—and eliminating any worry that the vaccine might become ineffective against variant strains.

[Note] Getting vaccinated is like first getting to know the virus (the hypothetical enemy). The immune system must have a way to “detect” it, mobilize various immune cells, and go through numerous sequential reactions before it can produce antibodies and fully activate protective immunity. Every step in this process is indispensable. According to nearly three decades of research, Ganoderma lucidum exerts a comprehensive regulatory effect on the immune system, covering all the immune responses required for antiviral defense. For more details, see: [ Adopting a “Buddhist-style” approach to epidemic prevention and coexisting with the virus—who else but Lingzhi could possibly do it! ] article. (Original image/Wikimedia Commons; image processing/Wu Tingyao)

[Introduction to Professor Hsu Rui-xiang of National Taiwan University]

● In 1990, he obtained a doctoral degree from the Institute of Agricultural Chemistry at National Taiwan University with his dissertation titled “A Study on the Identification System for Ganoderma Species Strains,” becoming the first Chinese scholar to earn a PhD in Ganoderma.

● In 1996, a “Genetic Database for Strain Identification of Ganoderma Species” was established, providing the academic and industrial communities with a reliable basis for identifying Ganoderma strains.

● Since 2000, we have been dedicated to the independent development and application of functional proteins found in Ganoderma lucidum, achieving the integration of medicine and food.

● Currently a part-time professor in the Department of Biochemical Technology at National Taiwan University, founder of Lingzhi Xinwang, and editor-in-chief of “Healthy Lingzhi” magazine.