Could mushrooms fight cancer?

The secret to treating millions of cancer patients might be hidden in a mushroom.

"Once I was diagnosed, I kind of shut everything down," said cancer patient Lisa Clinton.

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Clinton is convinced she recovered because, after surgery, she refused chemotherapy and turned to Bastyr, a natural healing university that is in the middle of a ground breaking investigation.

"We consider cancer a failure of the immune system, so when Lisa came here after being diagnosed with breast cancer, she wanted to know what she could do," said researcher Dr. Leanna Standish.

Standish introduced Clinton to the turkey tail.  It is a small mushroom commonly found in northwest forests that physicians in other parts of the world have been using for centuries to boost the body's immune system.

Researchers at Bastyr got permission from the Food and Drug Administration to study turkey tail's healing qualities.

"When they are ingested, they stimulate immune cells that line the intestines and then those cells stimulate other immune cells all over the body," said Standish.