Fungi polysaccharide and hypertension

Guoliang Chen
Edible fungi  research laboratory
Shanghai Agriculture Science Academy 


Hypertension is one kind of chronic disease that the artery blood pressure is higher than normal. The normal adult blood systolic pressure should be under 140mmHg  and diastolic pressure should be under 90mmHg. When the arteries' systolic  pressure is higher than 160mmHg and  diastolic pressure is higher than 95mmHg,  then that is hypertension.

The hypertension is divided into two kinds: the primary hypertension and the secondary hypertension. Primary hypertension is the hypertension without clear organic pathological changes. In other words, it is what we often called high blood-pressure disease. This kind of patients are 80-90% of the total hypertension number. The renal hypertension caused by chronic glomeruli of kidney inflammation, chronic pelvis or  adrenal struma is called the secondary hypertension. This kind of patients are 10-20% of  the total hypertension number. If the pathogeny is eliminated, the blood  pressure of secondary hypertension patients will recover to nomal.

Hypertension is a common disease. The incidence is about 3-10% of the total population in China. It mainly focus on the middle and aged people, and the incidence is increasing with the age. The incidence are different  betwee areas and crowds, incidence in north is higher than in south, in cities is higher than in counties, and in brainworkers is higher than in manual workers.

The hypertension do great harm to human body. The hypertension patients often have these symptoms:  headache, welling pain of head, dizziness, spontaneous persiration, night sweat, tiredness, sleepless, and the hands and the four limbs of body feel sour and numb, and so on. The hypertension tend to causes the pathological changes of kidney and retina, the harm to pancreas, the  arteriosclerosis, and the pathological changes of heart and brain, and so on.  Hypertension will arouses cardiovascular accident when it becomes severe. So the mortality rate of hypertension is very high, and it has become one leading killer to human life.

The hypertension is caused by the strong cardiac muscle shrinkage force but at the same time the weak diastolic funcion of the arterioles in the whole body, and large resistance of peripheral blood vessels, namely the slow circulation of blood in the lower reaches. But the real reason of hypertension is still not very clear. According to the understanding at present, the causes of hypertension are renal factor and nerve function, secondly because the factors of incretion、 sodium、potassium and calcium. In brief, the hypertension maybe caused by nerve factor and other many factors.

1、The nerve factor. Its mechanisms are the disorder of brain mantle function, the brain mantle can't control the activity of centrum under the mantle, and the disorder of centrum function: when the centrum of blood vessels' activity occur some regular long-term shrinking impulses, that will arouse arterioles spasm, and the resistance of peripheral blood vessels will increase, at last, result in the elevation of blood pressure. The hypertension arousing at he high-strung moment just belongs to this type.

2、The renal factor. If the blood flow volume of kidney decreased because of blood vessels, the cells near the glomerulus will be stimulated, or the sodium will decrease and get hyperkaliemia, which leads to the raising of the secretion of renin. The hypertension will be aroused, through the renin-blood hypertensin-aldosterome system, which urges the arterioles shrinking strongly, and increases the resistance of peripheral blood vessels. At the same time, the secretion of aldosterome is raising, which leads to the increasing of sodium and water retension, and the blood volume will increases too. So the blood pressure will elevates again. The shorage of secretion of  kininase by kidney and pancreas also leads to the elevation of blood pressure.

3、The incretion factor. The incretion factor means too much secretion of adrenalin and norepinephrine.  The adrenalin can increases the shrinkage force of cardiac muscle and the sendout of heart blood . The norepinephrine can gives rise to sodium and water retension, strengthens blood vessels' shrinkage reaction, and leads to high blood pressure.

4、Too much sodium、potassium and calcium in blood absord great amount of water from body fluid then urge the increasing of blood volume.The tension of consensual peripheral nerve and nervus centralis、kinin and prostaglandin (PG) cause the looseness of blood vessels, the reducing of substance, the increasing of blood hypertensin and strenthen the sensibility of blood vessels to blood hypertensin, at last, lead to the elevation of blood pressure.

In brief, the primary hypertension is caused by multiple factors, but the original element for these above phenomenons is still not very clear at present.
By now, we still have not found the effective method to cure hypertension, especially to the resistant hypertension rised by multiple factors, it is more difficult. Now most of the treatments are taking kinds of blood pressure medications, which can only decrease the blood pressure temporarily and don't have lasting effect. So the patients must take them every day and must always carry about them. For multiple factors lead to hypertension, one kind of medication just suit to the hypertension caused by one factor. But most patients don't know the  pathogeny of themselves. If they don't go through a thorough in strumental—biochemical studies, even the doctors can not know the pathogeny. So patients can not take medications according the pathogeny of hypertension. The only thing they can do is trying the medications to know if they suit to their condition. Some medications would have unwell reaction obviously after be taked. Though there are so many kinds of blood pressure medications, still a lot of patients can not find their ideal medications. So the treatment to hypertension is still a difficult problem by now.

The fungi polysaccharide in the edible fungi such as cypress fungi, black mushroom and grifola frondosa can increase the quantity of capillary blood vessels, enlarge the pipe diameter of capillary blood vessels, enhance the transforming capability of hematids, reduce the blood viscocity and blood fat, prevent the cirrhosis of blood vessels and  increase the elasticity of blood vessels, thus accelerate the blood circulation of the whole body remarkablely, and reduce the blood pressure. The edible fungi also have the function of calming nerves and relieving uneasiness of body and mind and spasmolysis, and preventing the arterioles spasm, so it has a good effect to prevent hypertension. The symptoms such as  dizzines、swelling pain of head、sleepless and tiredness will be improved remarkbalely after taking the fungi polysaccharide three to six months. The blood pressure will also decrease, if the resistant hypertension patients take the fungi polysaccharide such as cypress fungi and grifola frondosa. But it works very slowly, like “acute infantile convulsion met a slow-motion doctor”. So you would better take it together with common blood pressure medications at first. When the symptoms  of acute hypertension has been improved, you can take the fungi polysaccharide alone. In this way, you can remit the acute symptoms at the beginning of the disease, as well as you get a long-term therapeutic effect. If the normal people take some fungi polysaccharide, the hypertension will be prevented effectively.

The treatment of hypertension by fungi polysaccharide is curing from the pathogeny , so  it has a stable and lasting effect. The hypertension will decrease, at the same time,  all kinds of hypertension symptoms will disappear together.
The fungi polysaccharide is the ideal health care food for hypertension treatment indeed.