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Findings

’SHROOM SERVICE

Worried about getting sick this winter? Try popping some mushrooms—just regular old white button mushrooms, the kind on a pizza. They may “promote innate immunity against tumors and viruses,” according to scientists at Tufts’ Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging and China’s National Institute of Communicable Disease Control and Prevention. The fungus appears to heighten the activity of so-called natural killer cells, a vital part of the immune system. The research, in which mice were fed a diet containing different concentrations of white mushroom powder, appeared in the June issue of the Journal of Human Nutrition.