Back in October I learned something new about being an athlete. I was down in the bay for a 4 day training session and to participate in a few races. What happened to me after those 4 days is how I learned the hard way about immunosuppression and immunodepression. Below is a brief description from the Journal of Sports Medicine about immunity and athletes.

“It has become clear that the immune system responds to increased physical activity and may be given some of the credit for exercise-related reduction in illness. In contrast, it has repeatedly been shown that intense exercise causes immunosuppression. In essence the immune system is enhanced during moderate and severe exercise, and only intense long-duration exercise is followed by immunodepression. The latter include suppressed concentration of lymphocytes, suppressed natural killer and lymphokine activated killer cytotoxicity and secretory IgA in mucosa. Whether or not the open window in the immune system occurs is dependent on the intensity and duration of exercise. One reason for the overtraining effect seen in elite athletes could be that this window of opportunism for pathogens is longer and the degree of immunosuppression more pronounced. It is being hypothesized that severe immunodepression may occur if athletes does not allow the immune system to recover, but initiate a new bout of exercise while still immunodepressed. It has also been suggested that neutrophils serve as a last line of defence. The removal of this back-up system following extreme activity would be compatible with the propensity of overtrained individuals to develop upper respiratory tract infections.”

When I returned from my trip in October I started into a cycle of illness. It was apparent to me that I had depleted my immune system and I needed to figure out how repair, replenish and not repeat. After much research I decided to try mycelium. Mycelium is the vegetative part of fungus. What I learned was that fungi and humans are more closely related than either is to plants. The diseases that are typical to plants do not afflict humans but the diseases of fungi do. Since fungi and humans share common diseases such as ecoli, staph and many more, then we can learn a lot about fungis natural defense to these diseases. Fungi over many hundreds of millions of years have interestingly learned to produce their own antibiotics to fend off disease. I realized that I could learn a lot from mycelium and that it was going to help me repair and replenish my immune system. I found a product called Host Defense which is a combination of 16 different mushrooms mycelium grown by Paul Stamets (the mushroom guru). If you don’t know who Stamets is, you should. Just watch his youtube video about how mushrooms can save the world.

Months later I found that I am caught in a web of mycelium. I feel healthier than ever. I have done more research on mycelium and I am now fascinated with its affects on energy, specifically Cordyceps and the Chinese marathon runners. More to come….