Review Article Mushroom Polysaccharides as a Potential Prebiotics

Prebiotics are considering as non-digestible food ingredients which stimulate the growth of beneficial bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. It mainly consists of the dietary fibers and oligosaccharides. They are having the beneficial effects like gut health maintenance, cancer inhibition, immunopotentiation, cholesterol removal, prevention of obesity. One of the potential sources of the prebiotics is mushroom polysaccharides. Mushroom fruiting body contains high amount of polysaccharides i.e. lentinan, β-1,3 glucan, β-1,6 glucan, grifolan and its showed multiple health benefits i.e. immunosuppressive, anticancer, hypertension, diabetes, stimulate the probiotics. Hence these fruiting bodies extracts extends their use for the human health