Health
SACRAMENTO – With seasonal rains promoting the growth of wild mushrooms, Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and state public health officer, warned consumers on Wednesday not to collect and eat wild mushrooms.
“It is very difficult to distinguish which mushrooms are dangerous and which are safe to eat. Consuming wild mushrooms can cause serious illness and even death,” Chapman said.
“Wild mushrooms” refer to the many varieties of fungi that grow wild and are not cultivated. They tend to grow in shady, moist and humid environments.
Wild mushroom poisoning continues to cause disease, hospitalization and death among California residents. According to the California Poison Control System (CPCS), 1,602 cases of mushroom ingestion were reported statewide from January 2011 through November 2012.
Among those cases:
- Five individuals died (four in November 2012).
- Eighteen suffered a major health outcome, such as liver failure leading to coma and/or a liver transplant, or kidney failure requiring dialysis.
- 903 were children under six years of age. Usually the child ate a small amount of a mushroom growing in yards or neighborhood parks.
- 848 were treated at a health care facility.
- 30 were admitted to an intensive care unit.
The most serious illnesses and deaths have been linked primarily to mushrooms known to cause liver damage, including Amanita ocreata, or “destroying angel,” and Amanita phalloides, also known as the “death cap.”
These and other poisonous mushrooms grow in some parts of California year-round, but are most commonly found during fall, late winter or spring.
Eating poisonous mushrooms can cause abdominal pain, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, liver damage and death.
Anyone who develops symptoms after eating wild mushrooms should seek immediate medical attention. Individuals with symptoms, or their treating health care providers, should immediately contact the CPCS at 1-800-222-1222.
Local mycological societies offer educational resources about mushroom identification, and may be able to help individuals identify whether mushrooms they have picked are safe or not.
For more information about mycological societies in California, please visit the North American Mycological Association’s Web site at http://namyco.org/ .
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Diabetic patients with ovarian cancer who took the drug metformin for their diabetes had a better survival rate than patients who did not take it, a study headed by Mayo Clinic shows.
The findings, published early online in the journal Cancer, may play an important role for researchers as they study the use of existing medications to treat different or new diseases.
Metformin is a widely prescribed drug to treat diabetes, and previous research by others has shown its promise for other cancers. The Mayo-led study adds ovarian cancer to the list.
Researchers compared the survival of 61 patients with ovarian cancer taking metformin and 178 patients who were not taking metformin.
Sixty-seven percent of the patients who took metformin were surviving after five years, compared with 47 percent of those who did not take the medication.
When the researchers analyzed factors such as the patients’ body mass index, the severity of the cancer, type of chemotherapy and quality of surgery, they found that patients taking metformin were nearly four times likelier to survive, compared with those not taking the medication.
“Our study demonstrated improved survival in women with ovarian cancer that were taking metformin,” says co-author Sanjeev Kumar, M.B.B.S., a Mayo Clinic gynecologic oncology fellow. “The results are encouraging, but as with any retrospective study, many factors cannot be controlled for us to say if there is a direct cause and effect. Rather, this is further human evidence for a potential beneficial effect of a commonly used drug which is relatively safe in humans. These findings should provide impetus for prospective clinical trials in ovarian cancer.”
The results may pave the way for using metformin in large-scale randomized trials in ovarian cancer, researchers say.
Given the high mortality rate of ovarian cancer, researchers say there is a great need to develop new therapies for ovarian cancer. Metformin may potentially be one of these options.
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