In our unending search for "all answers to cancer", Prevention101 reviews all reports and testimonials about CHAGA MUSHROOM- and learned about its remarkable healing properties from nature. Chaga Mushroom (Inonotus obliquus) was first introduced to me by a patient who reported battling his prostate cancer 'his own way'. He credited much of his success to alternative (non-clinical) efforts from holistic means.
The name Chaga (pronounced "cha-ga") originates from the Russian word for mushroom (czaga) which is derived from the word for fungus. In Norway Chaga (kreftkjuke') translates to "cancer polypore" in reference to its fungal appearance and alleged medicinal properties. [1] Research showed the medicinal properties of CHAGA has been used for thousands of years in China, Russia, Norway and other cultures (far older than America). In Norway Chaga (kreftkjuke') means "cancer polypore" describing what is shown to be its medicinal properties. [1.5]
According to a report in the US Natl. Library of Medicine (NIH), "the analysis of the organic extracts of Chaga revealed birch compounds such as betulin, betulinic acid, and a characteristic fungal molecule inotodiol... observations allow us to consider the therapeutic interest of the Chaga, its chemical complexity, and to emphasize the interest of continuing to investigate mycotherapy potential by associating both chemical and biological approaches." [2]
In March of 2021, NYCRANEWS editors interviewed Debbie Falborn, Pediatric & Home Care Nurse from Sag Harbor, NY and a major wellness resource about the healing powers of Chaga mushroom. Since her business tenure as co-owner of CHAGA ISLAND INC. (2016-2019), Debbie and partner Bridget LeRoy helped to bring "this health secret of the east" to many with safe alternatives in anti-inflammatory and antiviral properties through public education and public access to this historically recognized therapeutic option from nature.
We originally learned about Chaga mushroom and its medicinal qualities from our prior interview with Jim Hunt and his solutions to treat his own prostate cancer. Debbie Falborn shared her experiences, her research and personal understanding about how this unique treatment solution works. She employed her talents as a clinician (RN) and a health advisor to cancer patients who showed tremendous success using the mushroom for some of a wide range of health issues.
HEALING PROPERTIES FROM A SINGLE MUSHROOM
By: Debbie Falborn
I was introduced to Chaga Mushrooms many years ago by my sister who is also a registered nurse, but light years ahead of me with her background in Oriental medicine. I was in a car accident and I had a very bad neck injury – resulting in surgeries and subsequent traumas from it. She introduced Chaga to me, and immediately I felt amazing levels of improvement in my mobility, my neuropathy and other issues from my injury!
Experts in Chinese medicine are well aware of Chaga for their patients, as it has been around for thousands of years in other cultures like Scandinavia, Russia, China etc. Even an article from Sloan Kettering mentioned that Chaga mushroom is being used in association with Covid, managing influenza type B like a Tamiflu/ They see it as a preventive to help your immune system and keeps you strong and healthy.
From all the global research, Chaga mushroom has an exceptional amount of Betulinic acid which has been found to shrink tumors. It also provides the ability to detox, and many vital supportive nutrients like potassium, zinc, vitamin D- helpful supplements to complement our inactive lifestyle. The way I understand it, Chaga mushroom has been recognized to actually change the mitochondria in the cancer cell, where its compounds can actually break down the outer shell up the cancer cell.
The active constituents of Chaga are thought to be a combination of amino acids, beta glucans, betulinic acid, calcium, chloride, copper, dietary fiber, enzymes, flavonoids, germanium, inotodiols, iron, lanosterol, manganese, magnesium, melanin, pantothenic acid, phenols, phosphorus, phytonutrients, polysaccharides, potassium, saponins, selenium, sodium, sterols, trametenolic acid, tripeptides, triterpenes, triterpenoids, vanillic acid, vitamin B1 (thiamine), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B3 (niacin), vitamin D2 (ergosterol), vitamin K, and zinc. (source: Debbie Falborn, CHAGA ISLAND INC.) Betulinic acid is a naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenoid which has antiretroviral, antimalarial, and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as a more recently discovered potential as an anticancer agent, by inhibition of topoisomerase.
HOW DO YOU FIND IT?
There are specific suppliers online. You can search under “Chaga chunks” or “Chaga mushroom chunks”. It comes from very cold climates. It needs to be taken off LIVE WHITE BIRCH TREES. It can't be off dead trees - so people need to know where it comes from. Some science that says that the Chaga from Siberia was contaminated by Fukushima because it has to grow for a minimum of 15 years to be hard to stick. So it's a slow growing conch. It feels like wood and it never disintegrates when you cook it. It will stay this property until all of the goodness is extracted out of it. And then you can just use it as a Tinder in the fire or throw it out. But slow brew it into a tea and it's very strong, very medicinal, and it's pretty remarkable stuff.
GETTING THE WORD OUT
Years later, I formed a successful business around this with a friend (Bridget Leroy) whose son I helped recover from a very long bout with mono within just a few days with Chaga mushroom tea. We started promoting Chaga Mushroom chunks in health fairs and farmers markets for weight loss, then for things like skin psoriasis. But soon after, more and more (young) people started coming around searching for it based on their own research to manage cancer. Most of them were quite verbal about their cancers and raved about their own findings and success with Chaga. This helped to drive us to build up the entire distributorship and marketing to expand our community reach, and even expanded the product line to include bottling Chaga tea.
The major audience for our Chaga business was mainly those who were needing the strong medicinal version (needed more than just a pre bottled tea). They specifically needed the concentrate from the chunks to brew it themselves as part of their entire health program-- many of which involved special diets, other supplements and things tailored to people undergoing treatments or suffering cancers.
With my background as a registered nurse, I made suggestions based on their blood work and their current symptoms & diagnoses. They integrated the Chaga information I provided with those from their practitioners as part of a personal integrative health plan. I would often check in with many of them from time to time to see how they were doing, and I found a lot of incredible success stories to attest to the efficacy of this tea.
Experience-Based Learning about Chaga from Trusted Sources" -by: Keri Hoyt (Long Island, NY)
I heard of Chaga mushrooms from my girlfriend Keri Stromski* who was an avid researcher in Chinese herbs and alternative treatments. For 4+ years, she valiantly battled breast cancer and she drank chaga tea religiously. Four and a half months from her diagnosis, I understand her tumors shrank significantly. Through all this, I connected with Debbie at the farmer's market where she gave a whole education on Chaga as an anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, anti-bacterial... and studies show it shrinks tumors, battles Crohn's disease, arthritis, psoriasis, and serves as an overall immunity booster. The Chaga mushroom also helps maintain liver health, lowers blood pressure & cholesterol. As a cervical cancer survivor, I maintained my health and attribute staying cancer free to things like Chaga... it definitely controlled other major issues I used to have like chronic migraines and psoriasis. ... Whether it be cancer or autoimmune disorders, you truly are what you eat. It's all just a matter of what you put into your body or how your body reacts to these elements- and with the amount of information out there, you'll find so many medicinal qualities from Chaga mushroom that's been discovered for centuries."
JIM HUNT: MEDICINAL WONDERS SOURCED FROM NORTHERN NATURE
Jim was one of those well researched shoppers at the farmer's market. He may have sent his mom the first time and I believe she was a wellness or nutrition buff herself. We got to connect by phone at first about his medical history, his lifestyle, his family- and we put it all together towards some kind of a sensible plan alongside working with his physician. His plan was his own and he did great- he's thriving and doing wonderfully.
WORKING THE BENEFITS OF THE MUSHROOM
During our video interview, Debbie showed us the actual Chaga mushroom chunks, looking like dried dark meat in the palm of her hand.
You start with four or five 2 inch cubes, fill up a Crock-Pot that should make enough tea to fill an eight quart crock pot twice. A rule of thumb is to (not boil and) slowly heat the Chaga for 8 hours - however many that can fit in the cup of your hand. It gets to be the color of dark maple syrup, and you can drink it warm or cold. People can sweeten it if they choose to. For re-heating (to enjoy it warm), place on the stove in a pot until it get hot, but doesn't boil. I suggest drinking two cups a day. Before I started working with so many cancer patients, I used this for DIABETES because it stabilizes blood sugar and blood pressure.
There's different ways of extracting the benefit. Jim Hunt’s version was to brewed it, using four or five mushrooms in eight quarts of water, put it in the fridge then he took it to work every day in his cooler. In order to get all of the properties out of the Chaga mushroom, like the BETULINIC ACID, the POLYPHENOLS, the ANTIOXIDANTS and all the different properties that are in it, it has to leach out into the water. So the only way to make that happen is to slow brew it with a continual heat.
Another way to use it is to grind it into a powder and make it into a tincture with alcohol. It sits for months, and you can put it under your tongue- like any other kind of a tincture. But for most of the people that I've spoken to (those who are sick), they need the optimal benefit of the tea. And for that is definitely slow brewing it and drinking it out of a cup, like a cup of coffee or tea. That is definitely the best way to do it.
Solid Research on a Wellness-driven Lifestyle- by: Tanya Repper
"When you're open to alternatives (nutrition & therapies), you have to dig into the research because it's easy to get swept into the wrong direction. This means talking to actual users, seeking out reputable specialists & researchers and reading from the right sources. I found that Chaga truly helps take out that inflammation. It helps restore your body to the state that it's supposed to be in running optimally and what we keep throwing things at it so that it doesn't do that. And so by drinking Chaga, it truly helps restore your system to the way that it's supposed to be... and to keep those viral infections at bay. We're exposed to inflammation every single day, constantly from the foods we eat to the toxins around us. It helps the good stuff do what it's supposed to do to fight the bad cells that are awakened by the things that you're doing wrong - like being exposed to the toxins that you don't even know you're being exposed to.
PROLOGUE
On February of 2020, Debbie Falborn liquidated her ownership of Chaga Island at the start of the Covid Pandemic, due in part to the regulated shutdowns of all public gatherings. She continues her personal initiative an educator and health coach in the wellness community doing private presentations and counsel about prevention, early detection and treatment modalities. Currently, she supports chronic patients as a private home care nurse- where Chaga mushroom is part of her arsenal of solutions to help manage her many patients health issues. In addition, she was recently appointed an ambassadorship with the NY Cancer Resource Alliance* and the AngioFoundation (501c3)* as an advocate for naturopathic and alternative medical sciences dedicated to cancer care and prevention.
2) US Natl Library of Medicine/NIH: "Chaga (Inonotus obliquus), a Future Potential Medicinal Fungus in Oncology? A Chemical Study and a Comparison of the Cytotoxicity Against Human Lung Adenocarcinoma Cells (A549) and Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells (BEAS-2B)" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6142110/
You start with four or five 2 inch cubes, fill up a Crock-Pot that should make enough tea to fill an eight quart crock pot twice. A rule of thumb is to (not boil and) slowly heat the Chaga for 8 hours - however many that can fit in the cup of your hand. It gets to be the color of dark maple syrup, and you can drink it warm or cold. People can sweeten it if they choose to. For re-heating (to enjoy it warm), place on the stove in a pot until it get hot, but doesn't boil. I suggest drinking two cups a day. Before I started working with so many cancer patients, I used this for DIABETES because it stabilizes blood sugar and blood pressure. 
