Can These Mushrooms Heal Your Gut, Stop Alzheimer’s, & Fight Cancer? | Dr. Catalina

0:00That is one of the big treasures of mushrooms that pro-aging or anti-aging works in every single cell of our body, in the mitochondrias, even for the gut, even for the heart. It's for the whole system. Lion's mane can be an incredible organ. Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, dementia as a whole. Is lion's mane just a trend? Well, definitely it's not a trend. we have seen in the studies we have conducted is that it gives you neuroplasticity. Your neurons become younger. Dr. Catalina Fernandez de Ana Portela is a biologist and mycologist pioneering medicinal mushroom innovation for human health and healing.

0:39Cordyceps works in many ways but what happens in the blood is that we are having a 40 % production of ATP which is a molecule for energy and up to 30 % more oxygen in the blood by taking cortisone. How does mushrooms help support cancer treatment? There are mechanisms of action. The most important is the immune system. When we see a patient that has a cancer, that has a diagnosis, their gut microbiome is different from a healthy person. Then with the mushrooms, what we see is that they start reshaping their composition of their microbiome into the healthier one. You can change the composition of your microbiome only in five days.

1:28Firstly, I want to say thank you to tuning in and listening to the show. It means a huge amount. And connecting with all of you is something that I absolutely love as part of this journey of growing the show. One of my biggest goals of 2025 is doubling the reach of this show and I can't do that without your support. So I would love to ask you a favour if you can press subscribe or follow on whichever platform you listen to. This helps us reach more people and for me elevating women in science is so fundamental and ethical and scientific information. So if you feel the show empowers you and gives you the information that you've been seeking I would love to ask a favour in return and to hit that subscribe button and help me reach the goal that I've set for the show of 2025.

2:16Thank you. I have never done a podcast yet on mushrooms and there is a reason for that because I've really struggled to find somebody on that expertise level that I really trust to come on here and talk about the medicinal properties that mushrooms can bring and then I came across you and so I'm thrilled because you've been in this area for 26 years now and you have basically dedicated your life to mycology. Your father was one of the leading mycologists in Spain as well so you've basically taken on his pioneering work and you are doing trials upon trials, 15 clinical trials I think you have running at the moment or in total you've been doing.

2:57Yes, exactly. Yeah, so there's a wealth of things that we're going to dive into today. When I looked at the stats I was quite surprised. So the medicinal mushroom globally the market is worth 35 billion. And there has been around 92 species of mushrooms that have been identified to support anti-cancer treatments. So people might find that quite interesting, like putting these two medicinal mushrooms and cancer and oncology together. And we're going to unpack all of that. But I thought before we do, and we look at the health benefits, I want to start with the basics. What is medicinal mushrooms for anyone listening?

3:37Can we start to uncover what they are? So mushrooms, generally speaking, it's a kingdom. It's a whole kingdom between plants and animals. Absolutely. I mean, I love that you described it as a kingdom. And I think there is so much coming up now in the mycology sector. You know, you look on Netflix and Michael Pollan and all these different people talking about, you know, everything that's underneath us, the roots of the trees, and you can see all the networks connecting. Your research mostly focuses on, and you can correct me. It's not the magic mushroom side. It's not the ones that make us high and, you know, connect to that higher consciousness, which is one of the three that you just described.

4:20Although the research in that area is also expanding, especially around PTSD and so on and so forth. But you're focusing on more on the mushrooms that we can eat and consume. Is that right? Yes. So one thing like that, when I was like looking at all the research that you're doing, I thought, well, let's start with some that people might have heard of, but still aren't sure if it's going to be that helpful to them. So Lines Mane is getting a really big kind of moment, I'd say, where a lot of people are adding it to their coffees in the morning. And I would reference it as a nootropic. So things that can kind of allow us to connect more wiring in our brain and work with neuroplasticity and new neural networks.

5:04I want to start with Lion's Mane because I think it's having a real buzzword at the moment and it's on a trend and there's lots of different research studies out there. There's some really interesting ones that I've come across whether it's neuroprotective, neuroplasticity, this is words that you know a lot of our listeners would have heard and I also heard you kind of mention just before you came on also how it's involved in gut health. So is Lion's Mane just a trend, first of all? And if it's not, what does the research say and how can people use it really day to day? Well, definitely it's not a trend.

5:41It is a trend how it got now to be known. It is something that we've been researching now for more than 20 years. And there's a lot of research from other universities, research centers, hospitals. But we have big research in autism in children, for example, with lion's mane and reishi, which is giving an incredible result. And this is very much linked to that link of the brain axis to the gut because we are seeing that when they are in the metabolism of the microbiota, we're missing some of those secondary metabolists that are produced by the specific microbiota. We're conducting now a study in Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia.

6:39Wow. And is it safe? I guess it's safe for kids to take, right? The beautiful thing of mushrooms is that they're really safe. Only people who cannot take mushrooms are the ones that are allergic. But if not, they're completely compatible with every treatment. The mushroom, the pure mushroom. So when we're talking about the extract that is dry and extracted or the pure mushroom powdered or even the mycelium, depending on how it's done. But what is very important is how then it's been produced, the excipients that it's put, that is when it can interact with other drugs. But if not, if it's the mushroom pure, the extract pure in the whole form, then there's no problem and we have tested it.

7:29This is something that we need to always, when we go into research, we need to go through something that's called the ethical committee of the hospital, where you need to bring all the proofs and all the previous studies in cellular forms and also in rats, in murine models that are cold, in order to see that it's safe, there's no toxicity, and that people can take them. That's really important. So you mentioned that two mushrooms, lion's mane, and then you slipped in one very quickly and we didn't have time to interrupt you, but it was reishi. So I want to make sure that people kind of who are new to this really understand what these mushrooms are.

8:10So you've just mentioned lion's mane and that can work really well on our gut health, you were saying, and our brain health. What we have seen in the studies we have conducted is that it gives you neuroplasticity, meaning that your neurons become younger. And that is an idea that I really love, which is not the pro-aging or anti-aging. It's not only for the face. Oh no, it's for the mind. It's for the whole system. Even for the gut, even for the heart and the circulatory system. So that is one of the big treasures of mushrooms that pro-aging or anti-aging works in every single cell of our body, in the mitochondrias, in the L-S-Tin, for example.

8:58So it's for our skin, for our arteria, for every single membrane of the cells. And what we're going to see with the intake of lion's mane is that you can have a better sleep, you can have a better focus and concentration because of those neurons that are even growing because they activate the synthesis of the nerve growth factor. So lion's mane erycinones are molecules that are contained, ingredients, and that can surpass the hematophephalic barrier. This is a barrier that normally nothing can trespass. This is the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier. The brain barrier. And normally nothing can trespass it because it has to be closed there, the brain.

9:51Nothing can trespass it. But these erycinones can. So they will be there activating the myelin sheath that is protecting the nerves. And this is so important because it's going to give us the connections from the brain to activate the muscles and to activate the action. So what we're thinking, it has to go all the impulse, the nerve impulse directly to move actually the action that we're sending. And this happens when everything is completely connected with that meal-in sheath. And this is something that Lion's Mane does. So we can see an improvement in multiple sclerosis, for example. Wow, so you can be working with MS.

10:42We are working with MS as well. And it's helping there. As I was saying with autism, we have now a research that is starting, that's a clinical trial with 500 elderly people that we're going to work to see how we can work in early stages of Alzheimer's. Because we are seeing that we can help incredibly with Alzheimer's. With lion's mane? Yes. With the extract of lion's mane. I think that's something that so many of us are scared of, right? I know it's the leading cause of death in the UK. I say that all the time in this podcast because I think dementia and Alzheimer's is something that always arises.

11:29It's incredible. So I guess even thinking pre-Alzheimer's, right? Maybe if you've got a genetic risk for it, a genetic disposition, yeah, this is maybe something that people should be thinking about, right? As a prevention measure. Totally. So we need to change the medicine that intervenes for the medicine that prevents. Can I ask one question here? Is it similar with Parkinson's? Have you done any research on that? Yes. Also work on Alzheimer's early phases of Parkinson's because when the damage it's been made, at the end it's an oxidative damage that's made to the neurons. Oxidative damage, yeah.

12:15So if that is implemented, it's very difficult then to undo that damage, to reverse that. So we need to work in initial phases in order to be able to reverse that and to give a better pronosis and a better outcome. So it is very interesting that people that have had cases in the family or genetically genetically predisposed disposition, need to really do, you know, a prevention on their life, lifestyle, in order to help preventing this cellular damage that will cause and end in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia. At the end, there's always there an oxidative stress that is working, that is damaging the cells, that's going to cause a decay of the nervous system, that's going to be affecting in one way or the other.

13:19And it is going to be, and normally it's linked very much to, you know, not the best nutrition maybe throughout a life. Well, I guess this is also very important to mention, right? So these are mushrooms that we can eat nutrition again we're not talking about magic mushrooms and i guess this just encompasses and i don't want people to leave this and just think what if i get some lines main in my diet i'm you know not going to get alzheimer's it all comes together right it works as a lifestyle medicine exactly where it's you know lines main as an addition to this can be an incredible like neuroprotector against neurodegenerative diseases um like parkinson's and alzheimer's and you know dementia as a whole.

14:04And even when we look at mental health, right, that's also where a lot of lines made research is up and coming with anxiety, depression, stress. And as we know, in that sector, and I talk about this a lot on the show, it's also about the lifestyle interventions that can support this. But what I find really interesting is, again, I told you, we haven't had a conversation on this on the show yet. So for people to think about this as a next step to add into their lifestyle is quite new for a lot of people. When it comes to mental health, what's the research there with things like anxiety and depression and even stress?

14:41Because stress is under the umbrella of mental health. There's a lot. Life is a path that we need to have a correct nutrition. We need to do exercise. We need to have mindfulness to have those moments of peace where we disconnect or we connect with our inner self. And then be very cautious of what we're putting into our system because there are so many harmful things in food right now. In fact, we are now conducting a very important clinical trial on breast cancer with working on microbiota, with lion's mane being one of the ingredients. and that is really helping to set new biomarkers with the microbiota to give a better pronosis of the big responders, of how people are going to answer, respond to the chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

15:43Iron is one of the most common deficiencies that I see in clinic, especially in women. And it's not just about feeling tired. low iron can impact your energy, your focus, your mood and even your immune system. It's something we really need to be aware of because if left untreated, iron deficiency can become very serious. Now UK data shows that around 20-35 % of women aged 18-50 do not need the recommended dietary guidelines for iron intake. And if you're pregnant, menstruating or following a vegetarian or vegan diet, your needs are even higher. and therefore you're more at risk. So that's why I often recommend Spartone.

16:25Now this is a naturally sourced iron-rich water that comes from the Welsh hills. It contains ferrous iron, the most absorbable form with studies showing up to 40 % absorption so your body can actually use what it takes in. Now it's also incredibly gentle. It's one natural ingredient, there's no harsh tablets and there's no digestive issues. I use it myself and it is my go-to in clinic. You can pick up Spartone at Boots and if you've been feeling low on energy it's absolutely worth checking in on your iron with your doctor or GP. And I think people might just be stopped in their tracks first of all that you've mentioned how it can help with breast cancer and and I know that your background's oncology.

17:09So many people have been diagnosed with cancer, 18 million people were diagnosed around the world with cancer and obviously now five years later that's only growing more and more. I think the fact that you've you're connecting so much of these medicinal mushrooms into cancer treatment which I really want to delve into and even autism that's super interesting for me but I have to talk about the cancer treatment. You're an oncologist by background, we've just heard about all the incredible ways that different types of mushrooms can help support the body and the whole system, the body, the mind, the immune system, everything, the endocrine system.

17:47But, you know, we've touched a little bit here through the show on cancer. And you started by saying at the beginning of this podcast that you're looking at breast cancer treatment at the moment with certain mushrooms. It's a mix of eight different medicinal mushrooms. Yes. So I was looking kind of before this podcast, obviously, at all the different clinical trials that you're doing. and I also looked at a recent review that found that 92 mushroom species have been found with anti-cancerous effects in the lab but only 11 have reached clinical trials and so I thought well what a better time to start this with you who is pioneering this sector in cancer treatment two very different camps bringing it together how does mushrooms help support cancer treatment and And is there any type of cancer which has shown the kind of best outcome with mushrooms?

18:39So it's going to work in what's called the different hallmarks of cancer, which what takes a healthy cell in a healthy environment to a tumorigenic environment where it's not healthy anymore, it's not clean anymore. So the cell is going to go through different steps, different hallmarks, where it's going to become carcinogens. And then it's going to invade other bases and it's going to invade other terrains of the body. How the mushrooms work from a very, very high level would be on the immune system, being biological response modifiers. So changing the response of the immune system versus recognizing the cancer cell and understanding that that is a cancer cell and attacking it.

19:35Wow. So it can directly. It's not going to be as direct as that, but there are mechanisms of action. They're going to be helping through various mechanisms. But the most important is the immune system. And then we're seeing a lot on microbiota. And the gut microbiome. So the gut microbiome, it's going to definitely be something that we see from scratch. When we see a patient that has a cancer, that has a diagnosis, their gut microbiome is different from a healthy person. Yes. So we know there's a difference there. And when we start working with the medicinal mushrooms in a person who has this dysbiosis, has a system in the gut microbiota that is not in equilibrium, in balance, then with the mushrooms, what we see is that they start changing, reshaping their composition.

20:45of their gut microbiota, microbiome, into the healthier one. It's a long process, as we always say. It doesn't happen overnight. But what we do see is that you can change the composition of your microbiome only in five days. It blows my mind. And I love that I'm having so many different types of conversations coming to my mind right now because Dr. William Lee has come on here quite a few times and he talks a lot about food and cancer treatments and he speaks a lot about the gut microbiome needing to be targeted during cancer treatment as well and I think just getting people to hear that conversation you know I think every single person listening to this has had somebody in their life that has been touched by cancer and sometimes that diagnosis can feel very heavy.

21:37And also there's only one route. And I think knowing that there is also evidence out there of other things that aren't dangerous, because again, sometimes there are things that are dangerous that's mentioned that do come with safety is important in this. And thinking about the gut microbiome when going through cancer care and treatment is really important to be considered. Yes, what we are always doing is bringing in the concept of integration. It's integrative medicine. It's integrative oncology, never alternative. We're always talking of side by side with the medical oncological treatment of the hospital treatment.

22:16so people are taking the treatment but what we are doing bringing the medicinal mushrooms in is helping them to cope better with that treatment to have to have a better quality of life while getting the treatment and overall for the oncologists is to get that patient supported through or out of all the treatment so we can get the competition of the the whole window of treatment that we have to work in because it's very intense. So we need to work. And for that, we work with serums, creams for radiotherapy with mushrooms, with cordyceps and reishi. We also work with these liquid forms, which are very specific.

23:08Now, one thing that is very important and more than anything when we're talking about an illness or when we're talking about cancer more than anything. It's very important that not everything can be taken. For example, the forms that have alcohol shouldn't be taken. So you see that a lot in tinctures, don't you? Yes. Okay, that's really good. Tinctures shouldn't be taken. Okay. Because always when we study the evidence to work in cancer, it's always with extracts. Because Because if we bring alcohol into a body that is trying to detoxify all of the chemotherapy, we're bringing more problems to that liver, those drugs.

23:55So it is hugely important that if we trust a treatment of medicinal mushrooms while we are undergoing a cancer treatment, It has to be a validated model with clinical trials, with going through a clinical committee, ethical committees of the hospitals, that there's evidence, solid evidence. The rates of cancer incidents are mind-blowing right now. When I presented my thesis three years ago now, I was presenting. So this is something we need to be very aware about. where do we live what do we breathe every day what do we drink what do we eat and then that being the basis of our health and the health span that we are going to have depends on this on what we do every day and then we can throw really good things into that nutrition which is lion's mint for being one can be something that on a daily basis can work at a cellular level bringing a little bit of that extract or powder of the mushroom and it's going to work in different ways in different equilibriums balancing the cells and the cycles of the cells so they are going to be fed on on these molecules and these ingredients and they're going to be building a new system that's going to help, but it's not going to happen overnight.

25:32No. This is something that we have to be taking it minimum three months, I would say, in order to find a difference in my analytics. We can see that before. We can see a difference in analytics in 17 days, even in the microbiome in five days, as fast as fast days. Wow. But if we put it in and then we take it off because we feel better and we don't keep it for three months, the ameliorations will come and go. As fast as they came, they will go. So this is very important. I've watched the science of adaptogens grow personally over the last few years and I've become more curious in their role in nervous system support, focus and resilience because adaptogens basically buffer the cortisol that gives us that stress and anxiety.

26:19But here's the thing, quality is everything. Most adaptogens on market don't actually contain enough of the active compounds that you see in clinical studies to make a difference. That's why I've partnered with London Nootropics. These guys only use clinical studies standardized extracts. This is really really important to get the benefits that you're seeing in clinical research. And they work with Hifas d 'Aterra, Europe's leading mushroom bioscience company. They have high bioavailability, they use incredible ingredients like KSM-66, ashwagandha, amredola life and these are the active ingredients that you need to see the difference.

26:52They have lots of different blends. Flow gets me into deep focus with Lion's Mane. Zen helps support my calm and steady my clarity with ashwagandha. And Mojo gives a clean lift, no crash. And Mush Love made with fantastic fungi with three hefastaterra mushrooms to elevate your day. Enjoy 20 % off and use code LIVEWELLBEWELL. They come in these fantastic little sachets and they are great for traveling too. One thing that I find really interesting and a lot of people put Lion's Mane in their coffee in the morning to kind of help with focus. focus so what's the kind of interesting research there um like does that help with your focus and attention and the second part to that is I sometimes put reishi in my coffee because I feel like it calms me and I want to know what the research is there because when you walked in I gave you a live well be well hat and you gave me two reishi supplements and I was like well this is an exchange um so I had to bring it up so I'm thinking about how people might be kind of adding this into their routines or, you know, what fills that could be quite interesting for people listening to this right now.

27:55Can lion's mane help you focus? Like, totally. Okay. So if I tell you my routine, tell me your routine. So I wake up and I take my glass of water with some drops of lemon and I take my capsules every day, my reishi, cordyceps and lion's mane. Those are my three main mushrooms that I love completely. But I also take the coffee with reishi or with lion's mane. I'm doing something right here. Yes. So you can bring the mushrooms into your life in different forms and in different moments. So for example, and I prepare my own reishi coffee at home, you can also do it with lion's mane. And it will, as you say, it will be better for your gut, it will be better for your system.

28:45The reishi to me, it brings me calm. So that's why I do it, yeah. Yes. And why does it do that though? Why does it calm you? Because reishi is going to work on neurotransmitters. Your neurotransmitters. Yes. Also lion's mane, it has GABA inside. So GABA is the anti-anxiety hormone that I talk about a lot. Exactly. So we are going to be working on all of our hormonal system with reishi mushroom, for example, balancing. We're going to be working on neurotransmitters. And we are going to be activating also the places where the neurotransmitters have to activate. The synapses. The synapses. So we're going to be looking at how improving the signaling and so making the most of all the neurotransmitters as well.

29:45And so how can you put in your daily routine the mushrooms? Well, we were saying you can take them as supplements, but you can take them as the powder in your coffee or coffee already made with mushrooms. They're really good, good coffees out there with mushrooms already, extracts on them. Then you can also put, for example, what I do very much and I did for my kids is to put lion's mane, which is the most edible mushroom of the medicinal mushrooms, into soups or vegetables. Or if you're cooking, for example, a piece of meat, you can put into the sauce the lion's mane powder. because they're like big white mushrooms aren't they they kind of look like a jellyfish they're called monkey heads monkey heads because they look like a monkey head in fact i just got that completely wrong like well i somehow obviously think they look like a jellyfish don't listen to me well i guess there's some jellyfish that look like a monkey Yeah, and so in Asian cultures, they use mushrooms for so many things.

31:03Cookies have mushrooms inside. When you're taking mushrooms as in different moments of the day and you're taking the whole mushroom, that's perfect. Because at the end of the day, you're taking a lot of mushroom. But the difference is if you're only taking them once, twice a week, then theirs is where the supplementation comes in handy. Because you need those molecules, those ingredients in a specific dose every single day in order to work. Similar like a probiotic, right? Exactly. Yeah, you don't want to be taking it twice a week, you want to be taking it every day. Exactly. You also mentioned another one, cordyceps.

31:41Yes. Now, I don't know if you'd have watched this. The Last of Us was quite a famous show on Netflix and it just reminds me of cordyceps where everyone turned into a zombie. I haven't seen it. When I think of cordyceps I now think of us all turning into zombies in the future but you know that's another topic of conversation so what is a cordyceps mushroom and how what how helpful is that for us what does it do what's benefits? I've taken cordyceps for 15 years and I haven't become a zombie, so it's quite safe. It's a booster for energy. It's a booster for performance and for fertility. No, tell me more.

32:25Well, cordyceps works in many ways, but for men, for example, what it works is in activating the synthesis of spermidine. Spermidine? Yes. Producing sperm. Yes. Improves the quality of the sperm. And then also activates the libido, which is very proven. And then also for women, it cleanses all the mucus from the fallopian tubes. So it allows the fertility moment where the implementation of the seagot into the endometrium. and that is going to help to really bring you know to a good end let's say when we are trying to have a baby to conceive wow I think it's so interesting because one of the episodes that I'm really wanting to do at the moment is on and the kind of increase in male infertility it's you know I think for so long it's always been looked at as a woman if we struggle to conceive right and more and more we're now also seeing that men are really suffering with this and it's unknown to them i think women sometimes are a bit more aware because we're aware of our biological clock and many you know maybe many people have known other women that struggled so we immediately can think it's us which also for the men they don't have that realization that maybe they should get checked at the same time as a woman and now i think that's becoming the awareness now is rising so much.