Posted 03 November 2010 - 03:55 AM
i use mushroom science reishi... def the best reishi out right now. but i figure since the dr's best & jarrow are so much cheaper its worth trying them first. im most likely going with the dr's best... i'll report back with effects.
Posted 03 November 2010 - 04:16 AM
I believe Dr's best and Jarrow source from China; I do not know which supplier there, or the consistency, quality or purity. Some are pharmaceutical quality, others not so much. Mushroom Science does not produce their own material; they only have at most 4 employees according to Manta. Judging by their price, they are purchasing from a domestic producer. Stamets' is well respected in the mycological community, and he does grow his own mycelial cultures, and supplies others with cultures, supplies and grow-kits. You can buy the actual mushroom, with the dead caterpillar it grows from still attached, in most cities' Chinatowns. The ones in New York were going for $160 an ounce last February.i use mushroom science reishi... def the best reishi out right now. but i figure since the dr's best & jarrow are so much cheaper its worth trying them first. im most likely going with the dr's best... i'll report back with effects.
Posted 03 November 2010 - 05:35 AM
Posted 06 November 2010 - 07:23 PM
Edited by ajnast4r, 06 November 2010 - 07:23 PM.
Posted 06 November 2010 - 10:40 PM
when i run out of dr's best im going to try aloha medicinals... http://www.alohamedicinals.com/
they have a pretty convincing schpiel about their cordyceps being superior & the lab work to back it up... its also only slightly more expensive than dr's best, and way cheaper than mushroom science.
Posted 07 November 2010 - 01:33 AM
dr's best & jarrow always have good quality products, plus good reviews on iherb... i just bought the dr best from iherb. the fact that mushroom science only has 4 employees doesnt bother me at all... they sell wood grown, hot water extracted mushrooms standardized to very specific scientifically defined amounts of the actives. their reishi is very potent, so potent (sedative) that i cant even take it during the day.
im going for exactly the effects steve listed
Posted 07 November 2010 - 03:41 AM
How do you know Dr's Best has good quality products? Consumer Labs caught them out at least once. Jarrow? I've gotten bottles with broken capsules, partly filled capsules, and what looked like floor sweepings in the capsules. True, anyone can have a bad batch in a largish operation but reputations can be overblown and out of date. Both companies do skip-lot testing, as the FDA allows. It's like people who are famous for being famous. They're good because everybody says they're good. Even so, I'd take them over most others in the business; but for mushroom products I'd go to the source, or as close as possible.
My point on Mushroom Science is that they are too small to produce themselves. They probably are conscientious and use high quality sources, but they are not primary producers. They contract out manufacture to a GMC facility, which may source the material for them. It can and probably still is of good quality.
Among professional mycologists (and I know several personally) Stamets' reputation stands out. I think most if not all producers in this country get their cultures from him.
Posted 07 November 2010 - 06:42 AM
How do you know Dr's Best has good quality products? Consumer Labs caught them out at least once. Jarrow? I've gotten bottles with broken capsules, partly filled capsules, and what looked like floor sweepings in the capsules. True, anyone can have a bad batch in a largish operation but reputations can be overblown and out of date. Both companies do skip-lot testing, as the FDA allows. It's like people who are famous for being famous. They're good because everybody says they're good. Even so, I'd take them over most others in the business; but for mushroom products I'd go to the source, or as close as possible.
My point on Mushroom Science is that they are too small to produce themselves. They probably are conscientious and use high quality sources, but they are not primary producers. They contract out manufacture to a GMC facility, which may source the material for them. It can and probably still is of good quality.
Among professional mycologists (and I know several personally) Stamets' reputation stands out. I think most if not all producers in this country get their cultures from him.
dr's best & jarrow are both manufactured in facilities that are as good as you can get... everyone says they are good because they ARE... the best in fact. i would invite you to contact them and ask them about the quality of their manufacturing. they are both HACCP, ISO 9001, cGMP etc etc etc.
i dont think that being the primary producer is really indicative of quality... if it was, we would have to x out 99% of the supplements sold in the US. I'm not arguing that stammets products arent good.. but they are insanely overpriced. i would take 'conscientious and high quality sources' with reasonable prices over self-produced & overpriced.
ex:
stammets reishi is ~40c per pill & mushroom science is ~27c., aloha is ~22c per pill
stammets cordyeps is ~40c per pills & dr best is ~16c per pill, aloha is ~22c per pill
w/ the stammets stuff you really are just paying for his name on the label.
Posted 07 November 2010 - 07:08 AM
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.(8)
This is true for Reishi;(9,10) Coriolus versicolor;(11,12) Maitake;(13) Shiitake;(14,15) and Cordyceps.(16) 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".(17)
Posted 07 November 2010 - 02:42 PM
How do you know Dr's Best has good quality products? Consumer Labs caught them out at least once. Jarrow? I've gotten bottles with broken capsules, partly filled
capsules, and what looked like floor sweepings in the capsules. True, anyone can have a bad batch in a largish operation but reputations can be overblown and out of date.
Both companies do skip-lot testing, as the FDA allows.
Edited by pycnogenol, 07 November 2010 - 02:43 PM.
Posted 07 November 2010 - 08:38 PM
How do you know Dr's Best has good quality products? Consumer Labs caught them out at least once. Jarrow? I've gotten bottles with broken capsules, partly filled capsules, and what looked like floor sweepings in the capsules. True, anyone can have a bad batch in a largish operation but reputations can be overblown and out of date. Both companies do skip-lot testing, as the FDA allows. It's like people who are famous for being famous. They're good because everybody says they're good. Even so, I'd take them over most others in the business; but for mushroom products I'd go to the source, or as close as possible.
My point on Mushroom Science is that they are too small to produce themselves. They probably are conscientious and use high quality sources, but they are not primary producers. They contract out manufacture to a GMC facility, which may source the material for them. It can and probably still is of good quality.
Among professional mycologists (and I know several personally) Stamets' reputation stands out. I think most if not all producers in this country get their cultures from him.
dr's best & jarrow are both manufactured in facilities that are as good as you can get... everyone says they are good because they ARE... the best in fact. i would invite you to contact them and ask them about the quality of their manufacturing. they are both HACCP, ISO 9001, cGMP etc etc etc.
i dont think that being the primary producer is really indicative of quality... if it was, we would have to x out 99% of the supplements sold in the US. I'm not arguing that stammets products arent good.. but they are insanely overpriced. i would take 'conscientious and high quality sources' with reasonable prices over self-produced & overpriced.
ex:
stammets reishi is ~40c per pill & mushroom science is ~27c., aloha is ~22c per pill
stammets cordyeps is ~40c per pills & dr best is ~16c per pill, aloha is ~22c per pill
w/ the stammets stuff you really are just paying for his name on the label.
Posted 09 November 2010 - 01:12 AM
Triple Helix.pdf 282.06KB
42 downloads
Edited by ajnast4r, 09 November 2010 - 01:21 AM.
Posted 09 November 2010 - 03:07 AM
dr's best & jarrow always have good quality products, plus good reviews on iherb... i just bought the dr best from iherb. the fact that mushroom science only has 4 employees doesnt bother me at all... they sell wood grown, hot water extracted mushrooms standardized to very specific scientifically defined amounts of the actives. their reishi is very potent, so potent (sedative) that i cant even take it during the day.
im going for exactly the effects steve listed
Sigh. They say no good deed goes unpunished.
How do you know Dr's Best has good quality products? Consumer Labs caught them out at least once. Jarrow? I've gotten bottles with broken capsules, partly filled capsules, and what looked like floor sweepings in the capsules. True, anyone can have a bad batch in a largish operation but reputations can be overblown and out of date. Both companies do skip-lot testing, as the FDA allows. It's like people who are famous for being famous. They're good because everybody says they're good. Even so, I'd take them over most others in the business; but for mushroom products I'd go to the source, or as close as possible.
Posted 11 November 2010 - 07:55 AM
Posted 12 November 2010 - 09:11 AM
also looking at NutraceuticsRx CordyPure which is using this extract. It costs a FRACTION of what the mushroom science extract cost. i havent determined which is the superior extract... will report back when i do.
Posted 12 November 2010 - 06:16 PM
also looking at NutraceuticsRx CordyPure which is using this extract. It costs a FRACTION of what the mushroom science extract cost. i havent determined which is the superior extract... will report back when i do.
What do you think of the product here: http://www.alohamedi.../cordyceps.html
I emailed them and they sell 1kg for $99USD
Posted 13 November 2010 - 04:35 PM
also looking at NutraceuticsRx CordyPure which is using this extract. It costs a FRACTION of what the mushroom science extract cost. i havent determined which is the superior extract... will report back when i do.
What do you think of the product here: http://www.alohamedi.../cordyceps.html
I emailed them and they sell 1kg for $99USD
that is just raw, unprocessed mycellium and should have negligible effects... see what i wrote it post 42 of this thread
Posted 13 November 2010 - 07:03 PM
While extracts are much better in terms of potency, raw unprocessed myecellium is much cheaper. Currently I take 15-20grams/day of Smart-Powders cordyceps and it seems to be working fairly well. Do you believe an extract would provide significant benefits over such doses of unprocessed myecellium?
Edited by ajnast4r, 13 November 2010 - 07:06 PM.
Posted 15 November 2010 - 07:08 PM
I only found one mention of "standardized" on their website. I think most of them are just regular extracts. Could be wrong?they sell wood grown, hot water extracted mushrooms standardized to very specific scientifically defined amounts of the actives
May be true for some of it. As someone else mentioned, the mycelium is freeze dried, which may or may not matter. Also, their lion's mane extract is the only one I would use or recommend; they extract both the fruit body and mycelium, using water and alcohol separately, then combine them. This suggest to me that, in general, they probably know what they're doing more than most other outfits.w/ the stammets stuff you really are just paying for his name on the label.
Amanitas and psilocybin mushrooms are definitely eaten raw, and the study using LM to treat dementia used whole mushrooms in soup. And I'm pretty sure most traditional mushrooms were used whole (at least sometimes), though I don't have any traditional references for mushrooms on hand to demonstrate this.ALL the research I was able to find, and all the references to traditional/TCM consumption were with extracts (water and/or alcohol). this makes me question the bioavailability of unextracted power in a pill.
the non-linear polysaccharides are bound up in the chitinnous cell walls are not bioavailable unless they are heat treated... which breaks up the chitin, releasing the betaglucan.
Human gastric juice contains chitinase that can degrade chitin.
Paoletti MG, Norberto L, Damini R, Musumeci S.
Department of Biology, Laboratory Agroecology and Ethnobiology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Chitin digestion by humans has generally been questioned or denied. Only recently chitinases have been found in several human tissues and their role has been associated with defense against parasite infections and to some allergic conditions. In this pilot study we tested the gastric juices of 25 Italian subjects on the artificial substrates 4-methylumbelliferyl-beta-D-N,N',diacetylchitobiose or/and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) chitin to demonstrate the presence of a chitinase activity. Since this chitinase activity was demonstrated at acidic pH, it is currently referred to acidic mammalian chitinase (AMCase). AMCase activity was present in gastric juices of twenty of 25 Italian patients in a range of activity from 0.21 to 36.27 nmol/ml/h and from 8,881 to 1,254,782 fluorescence emission (CPS), according to the used methods. In the remaining five of 25 gastric juices, AMCase activity was almost absent in both assay methods. An allosamidine inhibition test and the measurement at different pH values confirmed that this activity was characteristic of AMCase. The absence of activity in 20% of the gastric juices may be a consequence of virtual absence of chitinous food in the Western diet.
PMID: 17587796 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
Posted 15 November 2010 - 09:06 PM
I think most of them are just regular extracts. Could be wrong?
May be true for some of it. As someone else mentioned, the mycelium is freeze dried, which may or may not matter. Also, their lion's mane extract is the only one I would use or recommend; they extract both the fruit body and mycelium, using water and alcohol separately, then combine them. This suggest to me that, in general, they probably know what they're doing more than most other outfits.
Amanitas and psilocybin mushrooms are definitely eaten raw, and the study using LM to treat dementia used whole mushrooms in soup. And I'm pretty sure most traditional mushrooms were used whole (at least sometimes), though I don't have any traditional references for mushrooms on hand to demonstrate this.
Human gastric juice contains chitinase that can degrade chitin.
Paoletti MG, Norberto L, Damini R, Musumeci S.
Department of Biology, Laboratory Agroecology and Ethnobiology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
Chitin digestion by humans has generally been questioned or denied. Only recently chitinases have been found in several human tissues and their role has been associated with defense against parasite infections and to some allergic conditions. In this pilot study we tested the gastric juices of 25 Italian subjects on the artificial substrates 4-methylumbelliferyl-beta-D-N,N',diacetylchitobiose or/and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) chitin to demonstrate the presence of a chitinase activity. Since this chitinase activity was demonstrated at acidic pH, it is currently referred to acidic mammalian chitinase (AMCase). AMCase activity was present in gastric juices of twenty of 25 Italian patients in a range of activity from 0.21 to 36.27 nmol/ml/h and from 8,881 to 1,254,782 fluorescence emission (CPS), according to the used methods. In the remaining five of 25 gastric juices, AMCase activity was almost absent in both assay methods. An allosamidine inhibition test and the measurement at different pH values confirmed that this activity was characteristic of AMCase. The absence of activity in 20% of the gastric juices may be a consequence of virtual absence of chitinous food in the Western diet.
PMID: 17587796 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE][/indent]
Edited by ajnast4r, 15 November 2010 - 09:07 PM.
Posted 16 November 2010 - 01:50 AM
I've only talked to them about the LM stuff. I recall the info on iHerb being more detailed for them, as well. The Host Defense product is freeze-dried mycelium with brown rice substrate. Their extracts are alcohol/water mixes in dropper bottles.are the fungi perfecti line capsules extracted? it doesnt mention anything about it on the website.
Well, it's really just a little 'proof of concept' study, it seems to me. Such a small, homogeneous group can't be used as a representative statistic. Maybe some people can't digest the necessary molecules...or maybe the study didn't look for the full range of possible -ases, or maybe they exist further along in the GI tract. This study from 2007 mentions that it's really the first look at the possibility of chitin digestion in humans, due to the widespread assumption of its impossibility.interesting study but, to me, that just proves the need for an extract.. being that 20% of the population in that study lacked the ability to digest chitin. also who knows how much chitin anyone could actually digest & if it would be enough to make the mushrooms medicinally viable.
Posted 16 November 2010 - 02:17 AM
On the flip side, we have the case of magic mushrooms, which in my limited understanding work for everyone. And despite a couple hours' reading, I couldn't find any references that examined the alleged bioavailability problem. All of this argument seems to be from a) extract companies, and b) sources documenting traditional methods. But neither of these can be a definitive argument without demonstrating the problem they allude to outside of a hypothetical model constructed from untested assumptions.
Posted 18 November 2010 - 07:45 AM
Posted 18 November 2010 - 08:00 AM
Posted 18 November 2010 - 12:35 PM
How is that working out for you? Are the effects you mentioned previously maintained/diminishing/stronger now than before? Are the effects cumulative, maintained or subject to tolerance?While extracts are much better in terms of potency, raw unprocessed myecellium is much cheaper. Currently I take 15-20grams/day of Smart-Powders cordyceps and it seems to be working fairly well. Do you believe an extract would provide significant benefits over such doses of unprocessed myecellium?
Posted 18 November 2010 - 04:50 PM
Posted 27 November 2010 - 04:37 PM
what convinced me of the need for extraction, beyond the banter of a few company reps & beyond the need to actually put raw mushrooms head to head with extracted mushrooms was 1) traditionally mushrooms are never consumed raw for medicinal purposes 2) i could not find any research on raw mycellium. i found a small amount on [unextracted] fermented cordyceps, but the rest was extracted in one form or another. i figure its best to stick within the lines of research and traditional consumption.
Edited by shp5, 27 November 2010 - 04:57 PM.
Posted 27 November 2010 - 06:04 PM
In another post you mention that some european brands do sensible extractions. Did you find any concrete brands, for our european members (and me, incidentially) ?
Edited by ajnast4r, 27 November 2010 - 06:06 PM.
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