Several people across the country have this he was recently admitted to hospital after consuming mushroom gummies distributed by the Australian brand Uncle Frog and manufactured in the United States. They were reported symptoms included increased heart rate, nausea, anxiety and hallucinations.
This resulted in a product recall and warnings being issued by local health authorities don’t eat jelly beans.
Two varieties are affected: Cordyceps and Lion’s Mane. The Cordyceps product claims to supply “natural energy and power,” while the Lion’s Mane variety “supports memory and concentration.” Both mushroom varieties are infused with hemp.
So what in these products could have made people sick? And how are they regulated in Australia?
Cordyceps and lion’s mane
The Cordyceps product is claimed to contain extracts from the fungus The Lion’s Mane product is predicated on species.
Both Cordyceps and Lion’s Mane have a long history of use in traditional medicine to enhance mental function – particularly in traditional Chinese medicine.
Interest in research is growing, and it is vitally early, but emerging evidence suggesting that these mushrooms can have a positive effect on mood and attending to knowMy team at Southern Cross University can also be investigating the therapeutic potential of those ingredients, although our work has not yet been published.
Both mushrooms can be found in Australia as medicinal products, either through Australian Therapeutic Goods Registerwhich allows the sale of varied Cordyceps and Lion’s Mane products as complementary medicines or in the type of dried products intended exclusively for doctors.
None of those mushrooms seem like related to the negative effects reported in people taking Uncle Frog’s mushroom gummies.
So why did people get sick?
The product also claimed to be infused with “the best hemp on Earth.” Cannabis is a term often used to discuss with: hemp plant which incorporates less THC (the fundamental psychoactive ingredient in cannabis) than recreational or medicinal marijuana.
Although the distributor stated that the product has been tested to verify that there was no energetic THC, many individuals affected by this disease reported symptoms consistent with excessive cannabis use.
One user even claimed that THC has he passed a drug test after using the product.
This suggests to me that the adversarial reactions can have been on account of the cannabis component slightly than the mushroom component of the gummies – and that the cannabis component was stronger than the use of the term “cannabis” suggests.
However, the investigation is ongoing and more information is more likely to come to light in the end.
Igor Cheri/Shutterstock
What is functional food?
Cordyceps and lion’s mane is what we now have come to call “functional food“. These are essentially foodstuffs which are claimed to contain specific ingredients which will provide specific health advantages or prevent disease.
This may apply to each unprocessed foods (e.g. purple sweet potatoes have recently come into the highlight on account of their antioxidant potential) or processed foods and drinks (e.g. kombucha drinks).
Mushroom jellies are an example of highly processed functional food.
Functional food is becoming increasingly popular
As the lines between medicines and food grow to be increasingly blurred, and consumers often prefer products that were once in tablet form to those in ingestible forms resembling gummies and powders, the regulatory landscape becomes more complex.
This Therapeutic Products Administration (TGA) regulates medicinal products – including natural products resembling herbal medicines and food supplements – for safety and quality. This means you can make certain that what’s written on the bottle is what’s in the bottle and is secure to eat. For most complementary medicines, the TGA doesn’t assess effectiveness.
Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand Food Standards (FSANZ) regulates food. The development of functional foods has brought many interesting latest ingredients to Australia, often in latest forms. To be sure that such products are suitable on the market as food, FSANZ must approve them latest ingredients.
FSANZ officially removed gummies from legal sale because Cordyceps and Lion’s Mane are unapproved novel foods.
Food or medicine?
All of this sheds light on the issue of quality control of products intended on the market in Australia, particularly imported products.
To help manufacturers (and the public) determine whether products ought to be sold as food or medicinal goods, and subsequently under which regulatory authority they ought to be subject, the Australian Government has developed Food and Medicine Interface Builder.
However, public health experts have previously noted that the tool can be confusing – especially for products resembling gummies – and can result in confusion between regulators and public health experts.
Simona Pilolla 2/Shutterstock
Australia is seen as a world leader in the regulation of natural medicines – including: evaluation of foreign production plants producing goods for the Australian market.
But perhaps it’s time to narrow the gap between foods – a minimum of those who claim or suggest broad therapeutic properties – and medicines. FSANZ is do a lot of labor to scale back this gap, but more motion is probably going needed.
One element of this may very well be strengthening regulations on functional foods as a separate category. Japan was the first country to make use of the term functional foods, and its Ministry of Health provides a regulatory path for this difficult middle ground between food and medicine.
What must you do?
If you occur to have any of the jelly beans in query, throw them away.
When it involves functional foods more broadly, I’ll discuss with the following advice from Michael PollanAmerican writer who has written extensively on this subject: don’t eat anything your great-grandmother would not recognize as food.
If you need to discover the potential of mushrooms and plants as natural medicines, search for products regulated by the TGA (search for a number starting with AUST L, AUST L(A) or AUST R on the packaging) or refer to a qualified physician.
