Some mushrooms come with the moniker “magic” for the mind-altering effects that have seen them touted as a potential treatment for cognitive decline and depression.
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But the other kind of mushrooms – the widely-consumed chestnut or button, oyster or shitake variants, which do not contain the hallucinogenic psilocybin – could have a quasi-magical function too, if recent Japanese research is anything to go by.
Published by the Journal Of Human Nutrition And Dietetics in February (2026), the study of almost 1,200 mother-and-child participants found an apparent link between eating mushrooms while pregnant and the likelihood of a kid being better behaved by the time he or she is of age to start school.
Summing up the findings, the team, which was led by scientists at Meiji Holdings’ Wellness Science Labs and Ehime University, says that “higher maternal intake levels of mushrooms during pregnancy may be associated with a decreased risk of peer problems and a decreased risk of low prosocial behaviour in five-year-old children”.
A surly, unruly or inattentive toddler is often not only a handful at the time for parents, but also a source of worry as mothers and fathers fret about how the child will fare a year or two down the line when spending a chunk of the day in a classroom.
“Intake of mushrooms might be preventive against child behavioural problems development,” the researchers say, cautioning at the same time that “additional epidemiological studies and studies investigating the mechanisms underlying the observed preventive association” are needed to confirm the apparent link.
The study group had their diets assessed via a questionnaire before a follow-up survey was carried out in which the mothers fielded questions about an array of factors, including “emotional problems, conduct problems, hyperactivity problems, peer problems and low prosocial behaviour”.
“Adjustments were made for a priori-selected non-dietary confounders and potentially related dietary factors,” the team says, explaining how the research was finetuned. – dpa
