Health benefits of edible mushroom polysaccharides and associated gut microbiota regulation

Abstract

Edible mushrooms have been an important part of the human diet for thousands of years, and over 100 varieties have been cultivated for their potential human health benefits. In recent years, edible mushroom polysaccharides (EMPs) have been studied for their activities against obesity, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and cancer. Particularly, accumulating evidence on the exact causality between these health risks and specific gut microbiota species has been revealed and characterized, and most of the beneficial health effects of EMPs have been associated with its reversal impacts on gut microbiota dysbiosis. This demonstrates the key role of EMPs in decreasing health risks through gut microbiota modulation effects. This review article compiles and summarizes the latest studies that focus on the health benefits and underlying functional mechanisms of gut microbiota regulation via EMPs. We conclude that EMPs can be considered a dietary source for the improvement and prevention of several health risks, and this review provides the theoretical basis and technical guidance for the development of novel functional foods with the utilization of edible mushrooms.

Keywords:

• Cancer
• edible mushroom polysaccharides
• gut microbiota
• health improvement
• obesity
• inflammatory bowel disease

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31901623 to Ma), Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (19KJB550007 to Ma) and United States Department of Agriculture (Hatch MAS00556 and NIFA grant #2019-67017-29249 and 2020-67017-30835 to Xiao).