About Mushrooms

Mushrooms are unique, stationary like a plant, yet built from chitin, the same material contained in the shell of a lobster. Understanding the properties of chitin is critical to understanding how to choose an effective, high-quality medicinal mushroom product.

Chitin is indigestible by humans.(1) Yet chitin, which makes up the cell walls of mushrooms and mushroom mycelium, contains the potent immune stimulating compounds common to all medicinal mushrooms, the polysaccharides.(2) Practitioners of Traditional East Asian Medicine and modern clinical researchers both use the same preparation technique to overcome this barrier, hot water.

Only a heated liquid solution can break down the indigestible chitin and release the active compounds into a concentrated, bio-available form.3 When used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for chronic conditions or immune health medicinal mushrooms are always prepared with heat and water, as a tea or a decoction. (4,5,6,7,8) Medicinal mushrooms are never used in the un-extracted form (as mycelium bio-mass powder or dried mushroom powder), and rarely prepared as a tincture (soaked in alcohol and water in the absence of heat).

Scientific research backs this traditional preparation method. Every published, independent study on the use of medicinal mushrooms for immune health has been conducted with a hot water or hot water/alcohol extract. Every form of extraction, including precipitation with alcohol, requires a heated liquid solution to first release the polysaccharides, the primary active compounds, from the chitinous cell walls of the mushroom and mushroom mycelium.(9)

This is true for Reishi;(10,11) Coriolus versicolor;(12,13) Maitake;(14) Shiitake;(15,16) and Cordyceps.(17) All of the well-known isolates are also extracted in a heated aqueous solution, including Maitake Fraction from Maitake, PSK/VPS and PSP from Coriolus versicolor, and Lentinan and LEM from Shiitake.

According to the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia mycelium bio-mass products are inferior because of a "lack of bio-availability". This publication also states that concentrates derived through proper extraction contain active compounds "magnitudes higher than what is available in crude mycelium biomass preparations".(18)

At Mushroom Science we take these lessons seriously. Our dehydrated hot water extracts are formulated to deliver all of the important constituents unique to each mushroom. Every batch is analyzed for purity, contains guaranteed amounts of the active compounds, and is offered as a pure extract, containing no mycelium bio-mass or ground mushrooms as filler.

References

1. Upton, R., et al. Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) Standards of Analysis, Quality Control, and Therapeutics. American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. p. 9 (Sept. 2000).
2. Alexopoulos, C.J., Mims, C.W. Introductory Mycology. John Wiley & Sons. p. 10, 1979.
3. Upton, R., et al. Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) Standards of Analysis, Quality Control, and Therapeutics. American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. p. 9 (Sept. 2000).
4. Torisu, M., et al. Significant prolongation of disease-free period gained by oral PSK (Coriolus versicolor) administration after curative surgical operation of colon cancer. Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy, 31:261-268 (1990).
5. Xie, Z., et al. Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Commercial Press Ltd., Hong Kong, p. 201 (1988).
6. Liu, B., Bau, Y., Fungi Pharmacopoeia. Kiniko Press, p. 170-72 (1980).
7. Jianzhe, Y., Icons of Medicinal Fungi from China. Science Press, Beijing p. 145 (1987).
8. Bensky D., et al. Materia Medica of Chinese Herbal Medicine, Eastland Press, Seattle, p. 338-39 (1993).

Reishi

9. Upton, R., et al. Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) Standards of Analysis, Quality Control, and Therapeutics. American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. p. 9 (Sept. 2000).
10. Liu, B., Bau, Y. , Fungi Pharmacopoeia. Kiniko Press, p. 170-72 (1980).
11. Xie, Z., et al. Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The Commercial Press Ltd., Hong Kong, p. 201 (1988).

Coriolus

12. (U.S. Patent #4,229,570)
13. Liu, B., Bau, Y., Fungi Pharmacopoeia. Kiniko Press, p. 198-200 (1980).

Maitake

14. Jianzhe, Y., Icons of Medicinal Fungi from China. Science Press, Beijing p. 195 (1987).

Shiitake

15. Chihara, G., et al. Inhibition of Mouse Sarcoma 180 by Polysaccharides from Lentinus edodes (Shiitake). Nature, Vol. 222, p. 637 (1969).
16. Liu, B., Bau, Y., Fungi Pharmacopoeia. Kiniko Press, p. 170-72 (1980).

Cordyceps

17. Bensky D., et al. Materia Medica of Chinese Herbal Medicine, Eastland Press, Seattle, p. 338-39 ( 1993).
18. Upton, R., et al. Reishi Mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum) Standards of Analysis, Quality Control, and Therapeutics. American Herbal Pharmacopoeia. p. 19 (Sept. 2000).