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	Why a Hot Water Extract?

EXTRACTS

	Coriolus Super-Strength PSK/Japanese formula

	Agaricus blazei

	Chaga

	Cordyceps Cs-4

	Coriolus-PSP

	5 Mushroom Formula

	Lion's Mane

	Maitake Full Spectrum Extract

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	Reishi Gano 161™

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Only Hot Water Extracts Are:

100% Used in Traditional Herbalism
100% Used in The Clinical Research
Proven Effective for Therapeutic Use

There are thousands of studies proving the effectiveness of hot water extracts (liquid and dehydrated). At the date of this latest revision, on 6/23/2005, our research has not located any independent studies verifying the effectiveness of mycelium bio-mass, un-extracted mushrooms, or alcohol tinctures (hydro-alcohol "extracts"). Which product would you bet your health on?

Why a Hot Water Extract?

Mushrooms are unique, stationary like a plant, yet built from chitin, the same indigestible fiber that forms 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 Gold 404® and Maitake D Fraction®, 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 hot water extraction contain levels of active compounds that are "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 levels of the active compounds, and is offered as a pure extract, containing no mycelium bio-mass or ground mushrooms as filler.

End Notes

1,3,9 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.

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

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).

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