Poisonous mushrooms
| Mushroom poisoning | |
|---|---|
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| Amanita phalloides accounts for the majority of fatal mushroom poisonings worldwide. | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | emergency medicine, mycotoxicology |
| ICD-10 | T62.0 |
| ICD-9-CM | 988.1 |
| MeSH | D009145 |
Mushroom poisoning (also known as mycetism or mycetismus) refers to harmful effects from ingestion of toxic substances present in a mushroom. These symptoms can vary from slight gastrointestinal discomfort to death. The toxins present are secondary metabolites produced in specific biochemical pathways in the fungal cells. Mushroom poisoning is usually the result of ingestion of wild mushrooms after misidentification of a toxic mushroom as an edible species. The most common reason for this misidentification is close resemblance in terms of colour and general morphology of the toxic mushrooms species with edible species.
To prevent mushroom poisoning, mushroom gatherers need to be very familiar with the mushrooms they intend to collect as well as with any similar-looking toxic species. In addition, edibility of mushrooms may depend on methods of preparation for cooking. Collectors also need to be well aware that edibility or toxicity of some species varies with geographic location.
There are many folk traditions concerning the defining features of poisonous mushrooms. However, there are no general identifiers for poisonous mushrooms (guidelines to identify mushrooms exist, and will serve if one knows which mushrooms are toxic), and so such traditions are unreliable. Depending on folk traditions to identify edible mushrooms is a frequent cause of poisoning.
Examples of erroneous folklore "rules" include:
Discovery of new species of fungi occurs at a very high rate, with an estimated number of 800 new species registered annually. This, added to the fact that many investigations have recently reclassified some species of mushrooms from edible to poisonous has made older classifications insufficient at describing what now is known about the different species of fungi that are harmful to humans. Thus, contrary to what older registers state, it is now thought that of the approximately 100,000 known fungi species found worldwide, about 100 of them are poisonous to humans. However, by far the majority of mushroom poisonings are not fatal, and the majority of fatal poisonings are attributable to the Amanita phalloides mushroom.
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