Reishi…Cordceps…Chaga…Maitake…Lions Mane…Turkey Tail…

 

Have you noticed that for a few years now mushrooms have been popping up in health food stores and on supplement shelves everywhere?  Touted as “superfoods” and “essential supplements”, sold in trendy juice bars, mushroom varieties are extolled by healthy people smiling as they list their daily mushroom intake!

 

What is the deal with these mushrooms? 

 

According to ScienceDirect, (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878614616000180), there is no scientific evidence supporting the use of mushroom extracts in the treatment of disease. Yet, dried mushrooms and mushroom extracts have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries, and ScienceDirect concurs that “the presence of potent toxins and neurotropic compounds in basidiomycete fruit bodies suggests that secondary metabolites with useful pharmacological properties are widespread in these fungi.”

 

Paul Stamets, mycologist for over 40 years (http://www.fungi.com/about-paul-stamets.html) believes strongly in the curative impact of mushrooms. To learn a little about the power and healing properties of mushrooms from his perspective watch the following;

TedMed 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjv8Zj1ABAc

Ted Talks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI5frPV58tY

Exponential Medicine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7agK0nkiZpA,

and for a deeper dive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-9zzXuZ2h4

 

You can also read his book: https://www.google.com/search?q=PAUL+STAMMETS+book&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=PAUL+STAMETS+book

 

So now, let’s say you’ve decided that mushrooms are indeed of value to your health protocol…How do you know what kind, what form, or why to take what mushroom?

 

Many of these questions can be answered by the leading, and only LCP Approved to-date, Mushroom Supplement Producer, Host Defense.

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Yet, there is another important factor in choosing a mushroom supplement.  And that is in determining that you are, indeed, taking an actual mushroom and not a mix or substrate dominant DNA product from which the mushroom was cultured?

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DISTILLING THE FACTS: WHAT TO KNOW WHEN CHOOSING A MUSHROOM SUPPLEMENT

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FUNGICULTURE: the process of producing food, medicine, and other products by the cultivation of mushrooms and other fungi.

 

SUBSTRATE: the surface or material on or from which an organism lives, grows, or obtains its nourishment.

 

MYCELIUM: the vegetative part of a fungus, consisting of a network of fine white filaments (hyphae).

 

To grow mushrooms you need a “substrate” that allows “mycelium” to grow.

 

Thus, many commercial mushroom supplement providers use a host of substrates from grain like rye, barley or rice to coffee grounds. 

 

It is key to ask if third party testing on the final DNA of the mushroom product has been performed, and if so, what was it.  If they say anything other than mushroom, you clearly have your answer as to whether or not this is a product you want to purchase…Should they say mushroom then I recommend asking to see the data? 

 

*Host Defense will email you the data, and assures that every batch is third party tested.

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