Vietnamese scientists have found a way to isolate a compound found in shiitake musshrooms that is helpful in teating cancer, VN Express has reported.
Doctor Nguyen Tien Duc and colleagues at the Institute of Agricultural Electromechanical Engineering found a method of using ultrasonic waves to extract lentinan, a polycarbohydrate which helps treat cancer, from shiitake mushroom
“This method gives 1.6 times higher lentinan content and twice as much amount of dissolved dry matter. The extraction time is also reduced by 30 minutes,” Nguyen said.
The ultrasonic method of extracting lentinan from shiitake has been used in many countries, but not yet popular in Vietnam. When his team first began the project, it wasn’t easy to import a high-cost machinery system for research, so the team developed an alternative method to fabricate the extraction system using ultrasonic waves, in accordance with the cost and factors of time, temperature, wave intensity and solvency.
The use of lentinan compounds helps inhibit the growth of cancer cells, increases the efficiency of chemotherapy and prolongs life. The extraction of lentinan in some countries has become an industry valued at hundreds of millions of dollars.
