Real Men (and Women) Eat Mushrooms

The notion that mushrooms are good for you is not new. Mushrooms are a low-calorie way to add healthy vitamins, minerals and fiber to our diets. Mushrooms have developed and earned a reputation for helping immune system support, blood pressure support, weight loss, gut health and even helping mitigate cognitive impairment and reducing the risk of certain cancers. Mushrooms have earned their place on the list of super foods. When we mention mushrooms most people start thinking about all of the fancy mushrooms that are expensive and difficult to obtain, but probably the best part of all of this is that most of the benefits of mushrooms can be gotten from the good old-fashioned button mushroom that you find in every grocery store’s produce department.

We also created a short video to introduce this idea—watch it here before diving deeper into the details below.

Mushrooms as Aromatase Inhibitors

It seems that some of the mushrooms benefit for supporting weight loss as well as for helping mitigate cancer risk comes from its behavior as an aromatase inhibitor. This can be a tricky subject, because now we are talking about hormones, and hormones are complicated. There are people that have been diagnosed with breast cancer that have been prescribed aromatase inhibitors and there are people that have been prescribed hormone replacement therapy (men and women) that have also been prescribed aromatase inhibitors, and these people should certainly consult with their prescribing providers before including increased amounts of mushrooms. Aromatase inhibitors are basically responsible for curtailing the bodies’ production of certain forms of estrogens. While certain estradiol levels are actually important for men in terms of the bone density and other things, it seems that increased aromatization of testosterone can have an effect on the development of some cancers as well as the bodies storage of body fat. Of course, women deal with the ever-present concern of possible breast cancer and many breast cancers are promoted by estrogen levels and there is evidence that regular mushroom inclusion in the diet decreases the incidence of cancer.

Food Over Extracts: The Whole is Greater Than the Parts

Though mushroom extracts can be effective, consuming the whole food is often more beneficial due to the synergistic effects of the natural compounds found in mushrooms. Whole mushrooms may provide more complete benefits than isolated supplements. I have found that most botanical extracts are potentiated by the whole food in combination with the supplement.

Gut Health and Immune Support

The benefit of mushrooms for gut health probably extrapolates into its benefits for the immune support as well as the weight loss. In the interest of holistic wellness, standard operating protocol is to heal the gut first. Many people come to us with a broad spectrum of disorders, I think of them as onions; layers of problems, each a result of the other problems and presenting an intimidating situation where it becomes difficult to know where to start. Heal the gut first. Mushrooms can absolutely be a good part of this effort because of their wonderful fiber content as well as their effect on balancing the microbiota.

Mushrooms and Blood Pressure Control

Along with beets (another fabulous superfood) mushrooms have been shown to help control blood pressure. High blood pressure (hypertension) is a very serious disorder made even more dangerous by its insidious nature. Usually, the first symptom of high blood pressure is a catastrophic event like a stroke. You can’t wait for symptoms to motivate you to treat your hypertension and anyone with known hypertension should be under medical care. Having said that I think most providers would agree that eating foods that support normalized blood pressures is a good idea.

Supporting Brain Health and Preventing Cognitive Decline

Mushrooms have been demonstrated to help mitigate cognitive decline. This is a subject that we cannot take seriously enough. The world is still waiting for the first person to be cured of Alzheimer’s disease. That is a very chilling statement. There is no other disorder, not even the deadliest cancers, without at least some small degree of remission rate. Alzheimer’s is 100% devastating. We should all be thinking about our lifestyle and its effect on our cognitive wellness and it’s a subject we should perhaps speak more about.

Promoting Wellness in Our Community

We’re excited to have the opportunity to share insights into health and wellness; awareness is key. We hope by sharing information such as this that we are participating in growing a culture of strength and wellness in our community and were very happy to be here of service in Grovetown, serving the Augusta and CSRA area.

[1] Rauf, Abdur Et Al. “Edible Mushrooms as Potential Functional Foods in Amelioration of Hypertension.” Wiley: Online Library, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.7865. Accessed 8 May 2025.

[2] Ba, Djibril Et Al. “Higher Mushroom Consumption Is Associated with Lower Risk of Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies – Advances in Nutrition.” Advances in Nutrition, advances.nutrition.org/article/S2161-8313(22)00464-1/fulltext. Accessed 8 May 2025.

[3] Feng, Lei Et Al. “The Association between Mushroom Consumption and Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study in Singapore.” Sage Journals , journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3233/JAD-150455. Accessed 8 May 2025.

Written by: Donaid Seals D.C

Dr. Seals is a practicing Doctor of Chiropractic with over 25 years of experience caring for people across three states. His thinking is the product of his education, practice experience and many years in the natural foods and fitness industry. He has become living proof that old muscleheads don’t die-or fade away; sometimes they grow up to bring real-world expertise to the clinical picture. Traditional background information is available here.

Disclaimer: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of Dr. Seals, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. The information on this website is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Dr. Seals and his community. Dr. Seals encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional.