Medicinal mushrooms as ingredients in superfood, prebiotic effect and role on human health

Since ancient times mushrooms were considered a source of biological compounds (Venturella et al. 2021). People appreciated mushrooms for their culinary properties and nutritional value, after the discovery of their medical properties they start to be used as food supplements and in the mycotherapy (Jayachandran et al., 2017). These properties were imputable to different molecules with biological activities included in mycelia and fruiting bodies. The main bioactive compounds are the indigestible oligosaccharides and polysaccharides like chitin, hemicellulose, α and β -glucans, pleuran, lentinan, schizophyllan, mannans, xylans, and galactans, that show high effects on modulation and stimulation of gastrointestinal tract of microbiota, thus acting as prebiotic (Venturella et al., 2021; Singdevsachan et al., 2016). The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) describe the prebiotic as “a substrate that is selectively utilized by host microorganisms conferring a health benefit” (Gibson et al., 2017). They improve the growth of probiotic bacteria (in particular lactic acid bacteria) in the human gut and express the opposite effect on pathogen bacteria (clostridia, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella), which limits the growth, ensuring the health of intestinal microbiota (Synytsya et al., 2009; Singdevsachan et al., 2016). The studies on mushrooms showed that they carry out several functions to contrast disease like atherosclerosis, cancer, hypersensitivity, vascular diseases and help to minimize the damage that carries out by bacterial and viral infection (Gargano et al., 2017; Jayachandran et al., 2017). Mushrooms prebiotic compounds can normalize intestinal dysbiosis (reduce Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio) with reduction of metabolic disorders, such as insulin resistance and hypercholesterolemia, determining body weight loss and anti-obesity effects (Meneses et al., 2016). For the reasons given above, the industrial interest in prebiotics increased in recent times due to the possibility of their use as functional ingredients in the production of different types of foods (Davila et al., 2019). In particular, mushrooms are considered a very versatile ingredient. They are used as fresh, dried (powdered), or as extracts, to obtain different products in which the previously described properties are added or increased. Authors investigated different species of medicinal mushrooms for improving the functional properties of meat-based foods (Kurt and Gençcelep, 2018), bakery products (Gaglio et al, 2019), cheese (Ribeiro et al., 2015), cheese-like foods (Okamura-Matsui et al., 2001) and beer (Leskosek-Cukalovic et al., 2010). The interest of the industry for healthy superfoods using prebiotic fortification using medicinal mushrooms is pointed out.