Whenever we read about the health benefits of “medicinal mushrooms” in the popular literature we are reading about hot water extracts. 

Hot water extracts are the only form of mushroom preparation ever used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and the only form of mushroom supplement ever used, tested or studied in the scientific and medical research (The Health Benefits of Medicinal Mushrooms, p.6, Basic Health Publications, 2005, Dr. Mark Stengler).

Few people realize how much research has been conducted on medicinal mushrooms; more than 2,000 studies have been published on medicinal mushrooms in just the last 10 years, and all of these studies have used hot water extracts. In fact, hot water extracts are the only type of medicinal mushroom preparation that has actual proof of effectiveness for supporting immune health.

Even when medicinal mushrooms come from other cultures, such as Agaricus blazei from Brazil or Chaga from Russia, historically and currently, they are always prepared as a tea, as hot water extracts.

That is why MushroomScience will only manufacture and distribute hot water extracts, they are the only kind of mushroom supplement backed by the research.

It is not often that you have absolute consensus between 1,000’s of years of herbal practice and every scientific study ever published on that same subject, but that is the case with medicinal mushrooms. All sources and traditions agree, medicinal mushrooms must be extracted with hot water when used for immune support, and hot water extracts are the only type of mushroom supplement validated by the research.

None of the other types of mushroom supplements, including mycelium biomass and tinctures, have ever been tested or used in the published research, and the benefits are not known. Given how different these other supplemental forms are as compared to hot water extracts it is not appropriate or reasonable to rely on the hot water research to support the effectiveness of these other supplemental forms.

Hot water extracts are 30 to 80 times more potent than the other kinds of mushroom supplements, and the companies selling these other forms offer no credible proof that their products offer the same benefit as the hot water extracts used in the research and traditional herbalism.

The only reason these other supplemental forms are on the market is that they are incredibly cheap to produce.

Unextracted mycelium powder (grown on rice), the type of mushroom supplement most U.S. companies sell, only costs 50 cents a kilo to produce, but is sold for $1,000.00 a kilo at retail, once the powder is encapsulated and bottled for sale to the public.

Tinctures, also known as cold water extracts (liquid mushroom supplements preserved in alcohol), cost only pennies per 1 oz bottle to produce, but are sold for a price of $15.00 to $20.00 per 1 oz bottle.

Dehydrated hot water extracts, the type of supplement manufactured by MushroomScience, cost anywhere from $160.00 to $260.00 per kilo to manufacture depending on the species of mushroom and the length of the extraction.

The people at MushroomScience are not averse to making money, but we will not manufacture or distribute a mushroom supplement unless it has been found effective in the published research, and hot water extracts are the only mushroom supplements that have this distinction.

One Study 

The only real study to examine and use an unextracted mushroom supplement was an ongoing NIH study where they tested an unextracted Coriolus versicolor supplement (Turkey Tail), provided by another mushroom company.

However, after just 18 months the unextracted Turkey Tail supplement was dropped from the study and replaced with a hot water extract. This change was announced at a Society for Integrative Oncology conference in New York, NY (November 2010), by Dr. Standish, the lead researcher on the multi-institutional NIH research project. Researchers have switched to using PSK for the remainder of the 7 year NIH study, a hot water extract of Coriolus versicolor (Turkey Tail), supplied by the Japanese corporation Kureha.

Some companies claim they have research to prove their non-hot-water-extracts work for immune health purposes, and they claim that their products are “Proven by Science”, but these “studies” in fact prove nothing, and we will be adding more articles later to point out the problems with the “research” these companies rely on.

The reason hot water extraction is needed is because the primary active compounds, the polysaccharides that contain the beta glucans, are locked up inside of the indigestible cells walls of the mushrooms and mushrooms mycelium. Even soft mushrooms like Shiitake require hot water extraction to break down the cell walls and release the active compounds.

Fungal cell walls are composed of an indigestible fiber called chitin; the same indigestible fiber lobster shells are made of. Chitin is the hardest, toughest substance made by any living creature, and the only clinically or scientifically validated method for removing the actives from this indigestible fiber is hot water extraction.