Mushrooms may boost immune system

Some mushrooms taste great on pizza. Some mushrooms can kill you. Some mushrooms can make you see purple dragons. And some mushrooms can boost your immune system. In the interest of keeping things healthy, I think I'll focus on the kind I mentioned last.

White button mushrooms, also known as the table mushroom and the cultivated mushroom, have been shown to strengthen the body's defense against the common cold and even cancer. A report in The Journal of Nutrition revealed that mushrooms enhanced the activity of immune system cells.

This immune system boost comes from the high levels of the super-antioxidant ergothianine, which exists in abundance in the white button mushroom variety.