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Unveiling The Medicinal Mushroom Mystery

by Shari Barbanel | July 1, 2012

Customers are becoming increasingly aware that medicinal mushrooms offer benefits, but true understanding comes From a retailer’s guidance.

Mushrooms have been incorporated into recipes and served on dinner tables for ages, but what many Americans don’t realize is that while there are certain types of mushrooms that are a wonderful addition to a meal, there are others that can help keep them healthy. And while medicinal mushrooms have been used in Eastern medicine for thousands of years, many U.S. consumers have yet to see beyond what is on their plates.

“The potential for growth in this area is immense,” said Aubrey Marcos, CEO of the Texas-based Onnit Labs.“Mushrooms are usually considered food, poison or a psychedelic, and the powerful healing properties of these fungi have been vastly overlooked in the West. We see the knowledge and awareness building.”

While there is a lot of market potential for medicinal mushrooms, Ramona Billingslea, marketing manager for Betsy’s Health Foods in Houston, TX, hasn’t had a lot of customers asking for them. “We rarely get customers coming in asking for mushroom products. For the most part, these products are on our shelves because we know about their structure/function abilities and want to have them available to offer to the customers we think may find them useful,” she said.

But there does seem to be some progress, as Mark Stayton, sales manager of Martindale’s Natural Market in Springfield, PA, said he has seen an increase in the number of customers asking about medicinal mushroom by name, depending on the benefits they want. “Often internet research has them looking for specific mushrooms,” he Said. “However, the majority of customers are looking for benefits that mushroom products provide, but it is up to a staff person to talk to them about the mushrooms.”

Benefits

As the American public is beginning to do their research and take notice of the health benefits that medicinal mushrooms offer, Vincent Hackel, president of California-based Guzen Development, noted that it is important that they know what they should be looking for. “First, more than 14,000 mushrooms have been identified worldwide— of those, only about 3,000 are edible for humans, and of those, approximately 700 have been shown to exert health protective benefits,” he explained. “Overall, many mushrooms are good sources of potassium, niacin, Riboflavin and selenium.Reishi and maitake mushrooms are very high in beta glucans, a derivative that has been widely studied for its role in reducing risk of certain cancers.”

Medicinal mushrooms are most well known for the positive effect they can have on the immune system and can be used by everyone from athletes to those battling an illness such as cancer. “Generally, there is a potent immune benefit from the body recognizing these benign polysaccharides as foreign entities, and mounting an immune response that will benefit the general system as a whole,” said Onnit Labs’ Marcos.

“Cancer patients and their caregivers are increasingly turning to integrative treatment protocols,” added Dan Lifton, COO of Quality of Life Labs in New York. “Since some mushroom compounds are potent immune-modulators supported by compelling clinical research, their use among such patients in growing … In the case of AHCC (active hexose correlated compound), a lot of research has focused on establishing ingredient safety in conjunction with chemotherapy medication, which is needed to enable oncologists to prescribe AHCC to cancer patients before, during and after treatment. There have also been studies on healthy patients showing that AHCC in conjunction with the flu shot is more effective than the vaccination alone.”

AHCC is a proprietary extract obtained from a hybridization of several subspecies of mushroom mycelia. AHCC helps support normal immune function by improving the number And function of immune system cells, and specifically by strengthening NK (natural killer) cell activity. Quality of Life Labs’ best-selling product is Kinoko Gold AHCC. In addtion, the company’s newest product, AHCC-Rx, uses a new grade of the ingredient, which is 40 percent more potent than the original AHCC. It is also the only AHCC product available in soft gels and is vegetarian, according to the company.

Onnit Labs product offerings include ShroomTech™ Sport and ShroomTech Immune. ShroomTech Sport combines two potent forms of Cordyceps sinensis, both full spectrum and a micronized concentrate that truly maximizes the potential of the mushroom. In addition, the synergistic adaptogens rhodiola and Siberian ginseng further combine to add efficacy to the clinically demonstrated ATP synthesis and oxygen-utilization benefits of cordyceps. The formula also includes green tea extract and vitamin B12.

ShroomTech Immune is designed to directly influence the body’s ability to fight off immune challenges. According to the company, at the heart of the formula is a combination of the most potent medicinal mushrooms currently being studied, rich with bioactive fungal polysaccharides and beta glucans shown to stimulate the production of killer T and B cells directly. ShroomTech Immune also includes selenium, zinc And Echinacea purpurea.

Top sellers for Oregon-based MushroomScience include Cordyceps and Reishi. “Cordyceps appeals to athletes, [but] they all appeal to healthy people trying to stay healthy, and to people dealing with cancer or other chronic illness where immune support is a recommended part of the protocol,” said John Seleen, owner, president and founder of the company. “[It] helps with the side effects of chemo and radiation.”

Cordyceps and reishi both contain active compounds in addition to the polysaccharides, so they both offer very specific health benefits in addition to immune support, Seleen added.Cordyceps, provided it is the Cs-4 strain and a hot water extract, increases energy and endurance, and is very effective for athletes or people dealing with stress. Reishi contains triterpenes, which is very good for inflammation and liver health, including detoxing the liver, according to Seleen.

Beyond Immunity

While medicinal mushrooms are most notably touted for the benefits they can have on the immune system, research is showing that they can do much more.According to Mark J. Taylor, vice president of education and research for the New Jersey-based Mushroom Wisdom, research is currently being done on medicinal mushrooms beyond immune support to areas such as maitake SX fractions insulin-lowering actions, maitake D-fractions apoptosis geneinducing responses and amyloban’s promising results for dementia.

“All ends of the spectrum of consumers appear to be waking up to the use and gifts of medicinal mushrooms, so the appeal seems to definitely be widening,” he said. “Just a couple of years ago medicinal mushrooms were Lumped solely into the immune products category. A growing number of consumers as well as practitioners are also recognizing the healing potential for many serious chronic health imbalances.”

“Definitely more studies are being conducted on the wide variety of benefits, other than ‘immune,’” added Donna Noonan, vice president of marketing for Mushroom Wisdom. “A particular trend I notice is the inclusion of mushroom and mushroom extracts in specific formulas.”

Mushroom Wisdom’s best-selling product is Maitake D-Fraction. “I would imagine the reason it has done so well is reflected in the comparative research where researchers found the Maitake Dfraction to be the strongest mushroom for boosting the body’s immune responses as well as it having particular applications as an adjunct therapy,” said Kaylor.“And because it comes in a very concentrated liquid form, you have an easy-todose, therapeutically active supplement.” The company recently reformulated its several mushroom blends to include 10 distinct medicinal mushrooms as well as including the proprietary and unique extracts.

In addition to benefiting the immune system, Paul Stamets, founder and owner of Fungi Perfecti, LLC in Washington, parent company of the Host Defense® product line, noted that mushrooms provide many synergistic benefits including: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenesis, increase apoptosis And tumor necrosis factors (TNFs), antiviral, antibacterial, vitamin D (from ergocalciferols), as well as enzymes to help digestion. Among the company’s bestselling medicinal mushroom products are: MyCommunity, Stamets 7, Cordyceps, Chaga and Turkey Tail. And according to retailer Stayton, The Host Defense Line by Fungi Perfecti it a topseller at Martindale’s Natural Market.Fungi Perfecti is in the process of reintroducing its liquid extract product line and will launch a new “look” and expanded product line soon, according to Stamets.

Guzen Development recently introduced High Vitamin D Mushroom Powder, an organic, whole-food supplement ingredient that provides a pure vegetable source of vitamin D in the form of vitamin D2. A study published in the journal Genome Research reported that vitamin D was found to influence more than 200 genes; the researchers found 2,776 binding sites for the vitamin D receptor along the length of the genome.

“A vast majority of vitamin D supplements are in the form of vitamin D3, sourced from lanolin (sheep’s wool), and therefore not suitable for those who live a vegan lifestyle,” said Hackel. “Edible fungi such as Agaricus bisporus—or the popular white button mushroom—are abundant in vitamin D. The proprietary dried flour (High Vitamin D Mushroom Powder) provides superior levels of vitamin D2.”

In addition, High Vitamin D Mushroom Powder provides viable levels of riboflavin, niacin, copper, beta glucans and the antioxidant ergothioneine, which has been shown in various studies to protect against damaging effects of UV rays, protect mitochondria from degradation, help conserve circulating levels of Other antioxidants, and also scavenges ROS (reactive oxygen species) and RNS (reactive nitrogen species), according to Hackel.

The Extraction Debate

While the benefits of medicinal mushrooms are proving to be vast, there continues to be a debate about which method of extraction is most effective.
Some believe that hot water extraction is the only proper way to prepare medicinal mushrooms. In traditional Eastern medicine, medicinal mushrooms were prepared by steeping in hot water as a tea.

“Hot water extracts are the only supplemental form of medical mushrooms used in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) and research and traditional herbal practice worldwide. The active compounds that define a mushroom as ‘medicinal,’ the polysaccharides that contain the beta glucans, are found in the cell walls and only the cell walls, which are not digestible by humans,” said MushroomScience’s Seleen. “If you want the food from mushrooms, you cook them to rupture the cell walls. If you want the medicine from mushrooms, you make a tea—a hot water extraction in order to dissolve the cell walls and release the actives into solution where you can drink them as a tea or dehydrate the solution to a powder and put it in capsules.”

In contrast, other methods of extraction, such as alcohol extraction, are believed to be beneficial in addition to the use of hot water extraction.
“Unfortunately, so much misinformation has been pushed onto the public— such as statements like all research shows only hot water extracts can obtain medicinal benefits from mushrooms. This is particularly appalling given the hundreds of articles published to the contrary,” said Fungi Perfecti’s Stamets, who noted that extraction and delivery methods could vary depending on the mushroom’s benefits.“For instance, to best benefit from the antiviral activity of Mushrooms, a liquid extract would help reduce the pathogen payload via the oral cavity. In our research, the ethanol fractions isolate make more bio-available the antiviral components than hot water. For immune response solely from beta glucans, hot water extracts more efficiently isolate this group of constituents. Since your immune system can be taxed by exposure to both viruses and carcinogens, a combination of both may better serve to support immune defenses, especially as the role of oncoviruses— viruses such as herpes, which increase the risks of cancer—becomes better known.”

Necessary Education

As the extraction debate continues, there is one thing that is agreed upon—although medicinal mushrooms have been used for centuries around the world, American consumers still need to be properly educated on their various benefits. “This is an area that deserves more growth and seems to require teaching on the sales floor itself,” said Billingslea. “In other words, medicinal mushrooms don’t seem to be garnering the kind of attention that actually brings customers into our store.”

At Martindale’s Natural Market, Stayton said that the store does what it can to bring attention to the category.“We have had month-long promotions with offshelf displays with literature to bring awareness to the segment. This helped increase mushroom supplement sales during those months by about 50 percent.”

For those stores that offer produce as well as supplements, a cross promotion could be beneficial.

“Mushroom-based supplements are innately fun to merchandise and can certainly be cross-promoted with organic mushrooms in the produce department,” said Hackel. “One idea to get folks to try such supplements is to discount a supplement purchase with the corresponding mushroom.[For] example, ‘10 percent off High Vitamin D Mushroom when you purchase an 8-oz. Basket of white button mushrooms.’ When the customer is led to this section of the supplement department, ensure that there is a stand nearby with well-written educational literature about the health benefits of the various mushrooms.”

While it may take some time to raise consumer awareness of the benefits of medicinal mushrooms, Billingslea said she believes it is because they haven’t had their time to shine just yet. “Mushrooms just haven’t had their deserved 15 minutes of fame to bring them to the attention of the consumer-at-large,” she said.“Also, I suppose there is a stigma against mushrooms in general. After all, we have all grown up with stories about poisonous mushrooms, and then there is the hurdle of explaining to someone why a fungus is actually beneficial.”

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