Thank you Tanya. I was surprised when I read about the claim that mushrooms are aromatase inhibitors, so I thought I would ask you about it.
I do eat several kinds of mushrooms, either lightly cooked or raw (shitake, white button, crimi, and portabella) either fresh or dried regularly. I take maitake in supplement form which my naturopath recommended for my immune system. One local store used to carry fresh maitake, but they no longer carry it. I started taking reishi in supplement form after I read that reishi can inhibit IBC breast cancer.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ckaniklidis/ibc.htm#Reishi
new) Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) Mushroom Extract
Michaela Hoffmeyer at the University of Texas and colleagues (Hoffmeyer M, Martinez-Montemayor M, Dharmawardhane SF. Investigation Of Inflammatory Breast Cancer Biology And Potential Therapeutic Approaches. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program. Abstract BC031906) recently tested the hypothesis that the immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer effects of the traditional Chinese medicinal (TCM) agent Reishi (Ganoderma lucidum) mushroom extract, may be effective against IBC progression and invasion, given accumulating evidence of its ability to inhibit proliferation, adhesion, migration, and invasion of cancer cells via the triterpenes component which exhibits cytotoxicity against cancer cells at high concentrations, and component polysaccharides that are immunostimulatory. Whole Reishi extract was tested on normal mammary epithelial (MCF-10A) and IBC (SUM-149) cell lines, finding that the Reishi extract effectively inhibited proliferation of the IBC cell line, reducing cell-cell attachments and decreasing invasion of IBC cells, but not the normal mammary epithelial cell line. Reishi also down-regulated 52% of tumorigenesis genes in the IBC cells treated, and furthermore inhibited the matrix-metalloproteinases MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels. From these results, the authors concluded that Reishi inhibits IBC progression via cell proliferation reduction, prevention of tumor emboli formation, and inhibition of invasion by reduced matrix MMP levels, suggesting that Reishi extract is natural potential therapeutic effective in inhibiting IBC progression.