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MEETING At the 7th IMMC
The 7th International Medicinal Mushroom Conference was successfully held in Beijing, China on August 26-29. The very well attended conference showed the big potential of the medicinal mushroom as well as the unfortunate lack of its clinical application. By Leo van Griensven
The main organizers of IMMC7 were the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the China Chamber of Commerce of Foodstuffs and Native Produce under chairmanship of Prof. Yu Li. Co-organizer and host for the conference was Hui Chen, president of the board of Alphay Company and of the Edible and Medicinal Mushrooms chapter of the Chamber of Commerce. Alphay Company of Nantong is by far the largest mushroom producing company of China and has now daughter companies in Vancouver, Canada and U.S. offices in Washington and California. Known in the East as the King of Lingzhi, Alphay is a major player in the production of food supplements in- volving bio-active substances such as polysaccharides, triterpenes and other complex, immuno-modulating molecules. Alphay showed its in house expertise of mushroom cultivation to the conference participants by allowing an excursion into its large and modern production unit of Pleurotus eryngii near Beijing (Beij- ing Zheng Xinglong Biotechnology Co.). Expertise, design and equipment and top quality product were impressive and showed that China is not only a large volume producer but may become leader in cultivation technique of mushrooms.
Chinese production 1000 participants from 30 countries visited the con- ference. Opening lectures were given by Prof. Shu Ti Chang and by Prof. Solomon Wasser. Both speakers described the possible role of medicinal mushrooms
in maintaining good health, in particular in ageing societies. Interesting news mentioned by Prof. Chang was that China produced 25.7 million tons of mushrooms in 2011 including medicinal mushrooms, of which the production of Ganoderma sp. of 110.027 tons was by far the largest. China’s production was to account for 85% of total worldwide output. 100 species of mushrooms are now cultivated in China of which 50 in large quan- tities. In 2011 29 companies produced over 20 tons of mushrooms per day; in 2012 two companies produced over 100 tons of mushrooms per day. Consumption per head amounted to 12 kg per year. China has 3000 scientists that study mushrooms and 500 graduate students.
Clinical application still foggy Prof. Wasser concentrated on current status and unsolved problems of medicinal mushrooms. As most mushroom derived medicinals are mixtures of dif- ferent compounds, their acceptance is problematic in western medicine resp. pharmacology. Requirements of allopatic medicine differ from those of Traditional Chinese Medicine. TCM is thought to be holistic, ad- dressing the entire system as a whole, while Western Medicine focuses on body parts to treat the symptoms. This is a general and long held conventional opinion in China; and was clearly superseded by the work of Yongsheng Che of the Beijing Institute of Pharmaco- logy and Toxicology. Che gave a fascinating keynote
1000 participants from 30 countries visited the conference.
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