There is a lot of confusion today because of all the marketing claims on the Internet regarding which form of mushroom product is best to use. Some claim that it is the “fruit body” or fruit body, mycelium, or an extract standardized for a particular compound. This is an important question and the answer should be based on scientific facts, not historical usage or someone's opinion. The mushroom kingdom contains surprisingly complex biochemistry that may prove valuable for its health benefits. We have addressed this question precisely so that you can decide which are the best raw materials for your dietary supplements.
The Fruit Body or Carpophore
“Fruiting bodies” are the mushrooms you see growing on the ground or on an old dead tree. They constitute the reproductive part of the organism, like the flower of a plant. Just as flowers only bloom in a certain season, fruiting bodies only form in response to environmental stress, such as heat or cold, fire or flood, lack of food, or other stress. which forces the organism to reproduce or die. The mushroom fruiting bodies you see are NOT the growth form of the mushroom organism. This is strictly the reproductive part of the fungus at the end of its life cycle.
Mycelium
“Mycelium” is the growth form of the organism. It is the state in which all life processes take place, such as growth, feeding and competition for survival (including the production of antibiotic, antifungal and antiviral compounds). In cultivated mushroom products, the mycelium can be grown by fermentation in a liquid-filled vat, as is done for beer and wine. This is a very unnatural growing condition, and mushrooms grown this way do not have the same chemical profiles as those grown naturally. Medicinal mushroom mycelium can also be grown on a solid substrate consisting of material on which it would normally grow, which corresponds to natural growing conditions. For the production of most mushroom-derived drugs, the compounds are extracted not from the mycelium, but from the broth or substrate in which the mycelium is grown.
Excerpts
The word "extract" covers many possibilities. Extracts are usually made from mushrooms or mycelium, which are extracted using some type of solvent with the goal of concentrating a desirable portion and removing or reducing an undesirable portion of the mushroom. A number of solvents are used, depending on the type of compounds the extractor wishes to concentrate. The two most common solvents are alcohol and water. Extracts tend to be more expensive than raw materials and they may be more or less potent than the raw material, depending on the concentrated compounds and desired end use. The widely held belief that extracts are somehow "more powerful" than other forms of mushrooms is too simplified to be true and is simply incorrect. But this reasoning is the result of historical usage and dubious marketing claims on the Internet, as you will read below. The following section should help you understand how extracts are made, what their uses are, and why there are so many misunderstandings about them.
Full spectrum
“Full spectrum” Myco-products are the complete fungal material including all biologically active components, such as mycelium, fruiting bodies and, by far the most important of all, the extra-cellular compounds that are produced throughout of the life cycle of the organism. It is these extra-cellular compounds (compounds excreted outside the cell and into the surrounding environment) that are responsible for the main known medicinal properties of the fungal kingdom, such as all antibiotic, antiviral, antifungal properties and all other compounds of "survival" that the fungus produces to give itself an advantage over competing bacteria and microbes in the highly competitive environment in which it lives. These secondary metabolites have opened the frontiers of medicine, with advances such as antibiotics and cholesterol-lowering drugs. However, these are the properties that are eliminated by most extraction processes. Only in the 21st century has science developed practical methods to reliably produce full-spectrum myco-products.
Basis for determining the quality of medicinal mushrooms
The story
While medicinal mushrooms have been collected from the wild and used for a long time, the cultivation of mushrooms specifically for the production of medicinal compounds is a new science, dating only from the late 1970s. Since then, a number of " bioactive compounds of interest have been identified from fungi, including different compounds from fruiting bodies, mycelium and residual culture broth or solid substrate residue. In almost all cases, the major cellular components found in different life stages are identical. But there are differences in the "secondary metabolites" produced, where substantially greater amounts of particular compounds can be extracted from one growth stage compared to another growth stage. The scientific article written by Dr. Solomon Wasser gives many examples: Medicinal properties of substances present in higher basidiomycete mushrooms: Current Perspectives (Review) [pdf] published in - International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms.
What is the most practical way to produce medicinal mushroom products with the greatest efficiency, while keeping them affordable enough for the general public?
Just ten years ago, this posed a problem because fermentation in a solid medium had not yet been perfected and growing mushrooms in a liquid medium, such as for beer or wine, requires the extraction of the compounds left in the broth in order to obtain all the beneficial properties for health. This processing step increases the cost beyond what most people can spend on their dietary supplements. It is easy for a company to purchase wild-collected mushrooms or cultivate mushroom fruiting bodies on a farm and then extract them to make dietary supplements. Producing medicinal mushroom products with low potency is counterproductive, as they will not have a large number of consumers if they are not effective. So most companies take the easy approach of growing or purchasing mushroom fruiting bodies and then brewing a tea that is spray dried and called "hot water extract."
Many claim that this is the best form to use, or even that it is the only bio-active way to use mushrooms, which is of course absurd, since mushrooms have been consumed for their health properties for thousands of years. The concept that extracts are better than anything else is yesterday's science and does not reflect the current state of knowledge. These "hot water extracts" are certainly better than trying to digest hard, woody fruit bodies like Reishi, but this extraction process completely misses the potential health benefits that are offered by the extracellular compounds, which are not present in fruit bodies. Other companies simply grow the mycelium. This may be a better choice than fruit bodies if grown in a solid substrate, but mycelial products can be a problem if not produced according to strict biotech sterile tissue culture standards, and some products Mycelium-based products often contain up to 70% unconverted substrate, such as rice or wheat. All of our products are guaranteed to contain less than 2% residual substrate in the finished product.
Our supplier, in developing its own production process, has extensively studied the chemistry of wild fruit bodies, mycelia and extracellular compounds, and everything that was known about the bioactivity of each of them in the human body. They then developed special growing methods, including tailor-made growing chambers, strictly defined growth substrates, and specially modified growth parameters, such as controlling temperature, light cycle, quality and air composition throughout the year, in order to maximize the production of targeted medicinal compounds. By controlling every aspect of the growth cycle, our official supplier is able to produce the highest quality, most potent and consistent medicinal mushroom products available in the world today, while ensuring against any contamination possible by heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides or insect residues, as is often the case in other mushroom products.
One of our supplier's great advances in the science of growing mushrooms is their patented method of growing mushrooms in glass and plastic containers for a long enough period of time so that all raw substrates are completely bio-converted into fungal tissues and extracellular compounds. At harvest time, they have obtained all the different health benefits that the mushroom presents. This long growth period lasts at least several months, and for some species it can last up to two years. When a supplier promises that they can deliver a finished, custom-grown product in 30 to 45 days, you can be sure that the quality will be very low. In nature, it takes months and years for a mushroom colony to become established. This is why mushrooms grow in the same place year after year. They produce mushrooms every spring, just like a tree produces flowers, but the fungus organism itself exists from year to year in the soil. To think that we can grow this organism optimally in the laboratory in just a few weeks is wishful thinking. Yet this is what many mushroom growers claim to do.