Over the year, the number of poisonings with fashionable mushrooms has increased by one and a half times

Such a beautiful forest find contains a deadly poison. / Victor Avdeev

On the Web, it is easy to find videos of mushroom pickers eating freshly picked fly agarics right in the forest on camera. People are actively sharing cooking recipes and ways to use fly agarics - not only for food, but also for treatment. Meanwhile, the number of fly agaric poisonings, according to experts, in 2021 increased by 40 percent compared to 2020.

In fairness, it is worth saying that the fly agaric "family" is extensive and among them there are indeed edible, safe species - for example, the gray-pink fly agaric (Amanita rubescens). But most people consider a single mushroom to be fly agaric, the same "classic" - bright red with white flakes on the hat. This is the red fly agaric (Amanita muscaria). It is his wonderful healing properties with foam at the mouth that his fans defend. All kinds of tinctures and ointments based on fly agaric are popular for the treatment of joints and skin diseases, some people share in a whisper how you can get high from fly agaric tea (the mushroom contains hallucinogens). But the most fashionable topic is “microdosing”: people dry fly agaric hats, grind them into powder, pack them into capsules that are used to make pills (you can buy everything on the Web!).

Most people consider a single mushroom to be fly agaric, the same "classic" one - bright red with white flakes on the hat

Biologist, mycologist Mikhail Vishnevsky, one of the most famous experts on mushrooms, treats fly agaric very well - he even wrote a separate book about this mushroom.

He claims that the mushroom becomes edible if it is cooked correctly (you need to boil it for a long time, draining the water twice), and that this has been verified by his own experience. At the same time, Vishnevsky warns: "The amount and ratio of chemical compounds in the red fly agaric varies widely from region to region and from season to season. Spring and summer mushrooms contain up to 10 times more ibotenic acid and muscimol than autumn ones, and Siberian fly agaric mushrooms have the highest concentration of alkaloids compared with mushrooms from other regions. The lethal dose is calculated conditionally and is at least 20 fresh fruiting bodies. "

However, it is difficult to imagine that two people who were rescued in the last week of September in Nizhnevartovsk from severe fly agaric poisoning could eat so many mushrooms at one time. And this is by no means an isolated case. In August, in St. Petersburg, a 40-year-old man, who decided to have fun with a shamanic ritual using fly agaric, was also hardly rescued at the Janelidze Research Institute for Emergency Medicine. And the girl, who got lost in the forest and tried raw mushrooms, was taken to the clinic in such a serious condition that it was not possible to save her, said Alexei Lodyagin, head of the institute's clinical toxicology department.

Amanita tincture poisoning was registered in Lipetsk - a 25-year-old man deliberately collected mushrooms, prepared a potion from them, but ended up in a hospital bed. According to Lodyagin, the department was visited by many patients who were poisoned by dried fly agarics. When doctors asked why they did it, everyone said that supposedly for the general strengthening of the body, increasing immunity. "They read everything on the Internet, then they get to us," the toxicologist stated.

The red fly agaric is a poisonous psychoactive mushroom, its body contains a number of toxic compounds.

Every year, about 4 percent of all poisonings in Russia are due to mushrooms - this is about 1,000 cases a year, and 30 of them are fatal, Khalidya Khamidulina, director of the Russian Register of Potentially Hazardous Chemical and Biological Substances of the Federal Scientific Center for Hygiene named after Erisman Rospotrebnadzor, told RG.

“The red fly agaric is a poisonous psychoactive mushroom. Its body contains a number of toxic compounds that freely penetrate the blood-brain barrier of the brain and directly affect the central nervous system,” Khalidya Khamidulina emphasizes. “The fly agaric also contains a complex of poisons, such as muscarine, which causes a decrease cardiac output, muscimol, mucasone (an isomer of muscarine), as well as ibotenic acid, which is neurotoxic and causes destruction of brain cells.The use of fly agaric can lead to serious poisoning, excessive tension of the muscular apparatus of the whole body, in particular, the heart muscle. tissues or even stop the heartbeat. In case of an overdose, fly agaric causes convulsions, pulmonary edema, suffocation, to whom - up to death. "

There are no statistical data on poisoning from taking drugs based on fly agaric in Russia, the expert answered the question of RG. "However, according to the toxicological departments of some medical institutions, there is an increase in the frequency of severe cases of poisoning with fly agaric poisons - in 2021, the growth was 40 percent," Khamidulina said.

The excitement in the networks is doing its job - people post beautiful photos, tell how they tried fly agarics, share their feelings during the "experiment" and after it. And it seems that there are indeed more and more such "experimenters".

However, not only fly agaric is the culprit of numerous mushroom poisonings. "False mushrooms also pose a threat - that is, poisonous ones that disguise themselves as edible ones. According to mycologists, the most dangerous and common mushrooms in Russia are the pale grebe and the bordered galerina," Khamidulina noted. Both mushrooms are deadly poisonous.

By the way

Being engaged in "silent hunting", it is necessary to remember that there is a list of edible mushrooms. Of the large group of edible mushrooms, only the porcini mushroom, the real mushroom, and the common camelina are definitely edible mushrooms. Only these mushrooms can be used for cooking mushroom dishes without pre-boiling. All other mushrooms that are customary to collect are conditionally edible.

It is safest to pick mushrooms away from roads, highways, outside settlements, in ecologically clean areas. Arriving home, the "prey" must immediately be sorted out, sorted and again carefully reviewed.

- Throw away all wormy, overripe, agaric, stemless, flabby mushrooms, as well as inedible and poisonous mushrooms, if they were collected by mistake. Be sure to cook the mushrooms on the day of collection, while each type is cooked separately, experts from Rospotrebnadzor advise.

One of the main causes of food poisoning is the wrong technology for cooking mushrooms. To neutralize conditionally edible mushrooms, you need to process them in a special way - clean them from the ground, rinse well in water, and then soak or boil. During processing, toxic substances are removed from the fruiting body of the fungus, only after that they can be used for cooking.

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