Podcast:

Evolved Mushrooms

Healing Autoimmunity with Mushrooms with Dr. Anna Sitkoff, ND

With:

Jonathan Fredette

June 23, 2025

Watch: YouTube

This rich conversation explores the foundational mechanisms that drive immune tolerance and how medicinal mushrooms uniquely support these processes. Beyond their direct immunomodulatory effects, mushrooms play a vital role in nurturing a balanced gut microbiome and strengthening gut barrier integrity—both essential for a resilient immune system. We dive deep into these topics and more in this insightful discussion!

Conversation starters

[For awkward dinner parties, silent elevator rides, grocery store lines, and your favorite barista]

"Chaga as we know it—the wild chaga is 15% fungal mycelial mass, plus the rest of it is birch tree—it's decaying birch tree matter."

"There's research showing on humans that people who have received kidney transplants who are on immunosuppressive medication when given cordyceps, the cordyceps actually increases the effectiveness of that immunosuppressive therapy."

"Most mushrooms would be one to three grams a day. So if you have a seven-mushroom blend with 250 milligrams of all these different mushrooms, are you getting the benefits of any individual one?"

Key Topics

[00:03:10] 🧬 What is autoimmunity - immune system attacking the body's own tissues

[00:06:05] 📈 Rising autoimmune rates globally - environmental toxins, plastics, and gut microbiome disruption

[00:14:00] 🍄 Mushrooms as prebiotics - beta-glucans and chitin feeding good gut bacteria

[00:18:18] ⚡ Ergothioneine deep dive - the backup antioxidant system that crosses the blood-brain barrier

[00:26:00] 🔄 Immunomodulation explained - how mushrooms both stimulate and suppress immunity as needed

[00:33:30] 🧠 Psychoneuroimmunology - trauma's impact on immune function and potential for psychedelic therapy

[00:43:00] 🎯 Specific mushrooms for specific conditions - lion's mane for MS, reishi for Hashimoto's

[00:50:00] 💊 Reishi extract importance - why heating and dual extraction matters for bioavailability

[01:05:00] 📏 Therapeutic dosing - why you need 1-3 grams daily, not just a mushroom blend

Spores for Thought

"I have yet to meet anybody who has an autoimmune condition that hasn't experienced some kind of trauma in their life or has had some kind of significant epigenetic trauma."