LONGECITY

Does anyone have any useful experience with mushroom such as chaga, lions mane, cordeceps reishi etc?

I keep reading glowing reviews on product pages of how it works so well, for example how chaga gives you great energy.

 

I've tried lions mane powder drinking it as a tea, initially I did get a subtle clean stimulant effect which last for a short time. Took a break of several weeks and tried again, noticed no difference this time, no stimulation.

 

Also tried a expensive supposed to be high grade cordyceps powder for a few weeks, nothing, felt no difference. 

 

Is this another supplement hype bandwagon, where the only positive reviews you see are from those small percentage of  people who respond extremely well to supplements?

 

What is the best way to take these, tincture, hot tea, powder?

 

Are there any high quality brands which I should try which should work?

Edited by vtrader, 14 June 2016 - 09:24 PM.

Betulin from chaga seems to have strong anticancer and insulin sensitizing effects. It's also found in some other stuff too like red adler and the bark of birch trees. I don't know about you, but when I think of the bark of birch trees, I think of mushrooms.

Whatever you do, try something potent or standardized. The worst that will happen is you'll suppress tumors.


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If you want great energy, I would suggest drinking coffee. Just because some nutrient doesn't give you a buzz doesn't mean it isn't healthful. There's lots of research into the immunogenic and anti-inflammatory effects of various mushrooms.

the worst thing that would happen is, hole in your pocket. lots of expensive mushroom supplements out there with questionable quality. devintheyer mentions suppression of tumors and effects you wont feel but might work, thats ridiculous. just go get green tea

Yeah admittedly a bit tongue and cheek with the tumor suppression. I meant physically the worst thing is that you might accelerate your immune system to the dark side into autoimmunity but not likely too far, so at the very least you could have some tumor suppression which like that movie phenomenon with John Travolta could mean you lose your telekinetic abilities.


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Mushrooms have beta-glucans which stimulate immune response (to the extent that cancer patients taking high doses of reishi extracts have developed autoimmune hepatitis), and ergothioneine which is a mitochondrially directed (lipophillic cation) antioxidant. But both are in all mushrooms, including common/white button mushrooms. Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus sp.) fares particularly well in both, and I like them as a vegan meat substitutes.

 

I haven't seen much point to either extracts or more expensive medicinal varieties. 

Well I am no longer wanting to spend money of supplements that may work in the background, I am looking for something which has obvious effects. Reading reviews I thought the these mushrooms might have that effect.

 

 

darryl can you link to article showing high dose reishi inducing autoimmune hepatitis please?

 

vtrader, you want mushroom that actually you can feel and it works, try psylocybine mushrooms

darryl can you link to article showing high dose reishi inducing autoimmune hepatitis please?

vtrader, you want mushroom that actually you can feel and it works, try psylocybine mushrooms

I think we were all dancing around whether or not we mentioned that one... Though to be serious, small doses of psychedelic substances have nootropic-like effects. Whether or not they are truly nootropic depends on their window of therapeutic effectiveness vs side effects, the major ones being inhibition and hallucinations. A ratio of 50 is a good rule of thumb for sensitive substances. I haven't dug much into that because I'm against taking illegal and psychedelic substances...
Edited by devinthayer, 15 June 2016 - 10:34 AM.

darryl can you link to article showing high dose reishi inducing autoimmune hepatitis please?

 

I'm sorry, my memory was mistaken at that late hour. The high dose mushroom extract that likely induces autoimmune hepatitis is princess matsutake (Agaricus subrufescens or Agaricus blazei) 

 

Mukai, H. et al., 2006. An alternative medicine, Agaricus blazei, may have induced severe hepatic dysfunction in cancer patients. Japanese Journal of Clinical Oncology, 36(12), pp.808-810.

 

Hisamochi, A.,et al. 2013. Drug-induced liver injury associated with Agaricus blazei Murill which is very similar to autoimmune hepatitis. Clinical journal of gastroenterology, 6(2), pp.139-144.

 

 

While wild mushroom toxins seem to cause around 2% of acute liver failure, there are a few other cases of confirmed autoimmune hepatitis that may be related to mushroom ingestion:

 

Rogart, J.N. et al. 2008. Type I Autoimmune Hepatitis Presenting With Acute Liver Failure in the Setting of Wild Mushroom Ingestion. Journal of clinical gastroenterology,42(6), p.662.

 

 

I still think there's a lot of evidence in favor of daily mushroom ingestion, it looks like another case of hormesis, where small doses do elevate immune response beneficially, and large doses excessively.

 

 

Edited by Darryl, 15 June 2016 - 12:06 PM.

Adaptogens, like medicinal mushrooms, primarily work over time and they are hard to quantify without doing blood work. They also effect people differently (i.e., some say reishi is stimulating, others say reishi is calming). Some people do claim to "feel them" but it is varied. 

 

If you do decide to try them, make sure to get a quality source extracted from fruiting bodies (mushrooms) as there is a huge variance in the quality of products out there and many products marketed as mushrooms are not made from mushrooms.

Been taking Reishi (and intermittently Chaga) for a few years now, either 2 or 3, can't remember exactly. My allergies are almost totally gone. I used to be allergic mainly to pollen, dust, cats and mold. Pollen allergies happened every year and resulted in me constantly sneezing and needing to carry multiple handkerchiefs around every day. Occasionally I would need to retire to a dark room, as my eyes couldn't cope with light and I needed to sleep the headache off.

 

My body's response to pollen is interesting - when a new type of pollen appears for the first time during the year (like birch pollen early in the year or grass pollen later), my nose will itch and I may sneeze, maybe for a whole day, before my body/immune system adjusts and then I have no further adverse response. It's like your immune system needs to play with the pollen for a while before deciding what to do with it, before neutralising its effects. After that, I can occasionally still 'smell' pollen and feel it going up my nose on a high pollen day, but nothing happens. Keep expecting something to happen, but doesn't. Dust I now seem to be completely immune from, unless it goes down my throat (couple of times I've drunk out of a wine glass that had dust it it, my chest will still get wheezy), and I think mold on nuts has the same effect.

 

I see the OP is in London, I am in the UK as well so can recommend Myconutri as a supplier, made in the UK, I order online from mushroomnutrition.com. They are dual-extract products. That's my main intake. I also stock up on 'Four Sigmatic' reishi 'mushroom drinks' (I buy them in Planet Organic when I am in London), £20 for a box of 20 sachets but you can dilute them down so that one sachet makes two drinks, still a 500mg dose of dual-extract product per cup. Will also occasionally buy the Chaga version, but don't use that at night as it will keep you awake (the whole night).

 

Also took Cordyceps for a while before dropping it, as there are only so many pills you can take. Combined with Rhodiola and/or Eleuthero, when I used to go running it definitely increased oxygen utilisation, like you could gulp more air down as you ran. But if you're just running to keep fit then it may be overkill.

 

Energy-wise, Chaga definitely keeps me awake, but doesn't energise me (Rhodiola and Eleuthero combined will also do the same thing but with a discernible 'boost', a kind of light-headed feeling where you can imagine never going to sleep ever again).

 

A couple of years ago, while I wasn't working and had time on my hands, I tried taking a bunch of other stuff, but mushrooms (and magnesium) are the only ones I've stayed with. Lots of shiitake omelettes as well.

 

you mentioned four sigmatic as a good place to shop but i strongly disagree. their coffee powders are exactly that, coffee powders with a pint of mushroom smell. its just the coffee giving you boost and it feels exactly like a coffee which is funny as they claim to have mushrooms and other stuff in there to work together, completely not the case and the fact it has ridiculous high price makes their products CRAP.

Never used the coffee powders, they are the newer ones I think - I just use the original boxes with Reishi and Chaga written in big letters.

you mentioned four sigmatic as a good place to shop but i strongly disagree. their coffee powders are exactly that, coffee powders with a pint of mushroom smell. its just the coffee giving you boost and it feels exactly like a coffee which is funny as they claim to have mushrooms and other stuff in there to work together, completely not the case and the fact it has ridiculous high price makes their products CRAP.

 

Cost aside all their servings have 1-1.5g of mushroom extracts which I would consider adequate. All their ingredients are from fruiting bodies (aside from Cs-4) which is excellent considering the # of "mushroom" products not made from fruiting bodies. 

 

The only downside is it not being organic, otherwise I would consider them one of the better products out there.