Reishi, the mushroom of longevity.
“The goal is to maintain or improve brain function and physical performance. And not get cancer.”
‘Shrooms-every-day is part of my long-term anti-cancer plan. It’s not always a lot per serving, but I try to do the whole variety thing as much as possible, whatever’s available.
Maybe it’s one of those ice-age fairy tales fallacies, but cultures around the world have attributed a large number of health benefits to ‘shrooms for literally, thousands of years:
“Ganoderma [reishi] has a very long history in East Asia as a medicinal mushroom dating back to the Chinese materia medica ‘Shen Nung Ben Cao Jing,’ written between 206 BC and 8 AD. It was considered a superior tonic for prolonging life, preventing aging, and boosting qi.”
I’ve never had reishi and apparently it doesn’t taste very good, but there are hundreds of recipes for reishi tea online and a variety of reishi powders, , and extracts available (Imma try this one, maybe in coffee or something; will report back).
For the following reason, I’m inclined to think many of them contain the important stuff: it seems like whatever magical compounds are in reishi are soluble in just about anything because investigators use many extraction techniques and the outcomes of pre-clinical studies are pretty much all the same (positive).
Which brings me to this study (not funded by Big ‘Shrooma LOL)
Triterpenoids and polysaccharide peptides-enriched Ganoderma lucidum: blah blah blah (Chiu et al., 2017)
From what I can gather about this research group is they’re not mushroom specialists – they’re conduct human trials on a variety of herbs, spices, and medicinal plants. And they don’t appear to be biased – I could be wrong, but plenty of “no effect of X on Y” makes me think that way.
Crazy. 6 months! Randomized Clinical CROSSOVER Trial. That’s like, the bestest study design ever. They recruited people with modestly elevated liver enzymes & fatty liver but were otherwise healthy (in other words, pre-diabetic or soon-to-be).
The participants didn’t get taller or shred body fat or anything crazy but they did show statistically significant improvements in a variety of outcomes: decreased oxidative stress markers in plasma, increased antioxidant enzymes in red blood cells, and markers of liver damage went way down.
Prior blogs on this: Mushrooms are Awesome (P<0.05) AND GOOD CALORIES, and a decent overview of reishi, specifically.
To learn more about this non-psychedelic but otherwise magical mushroom and it’s potential neuroprotective effects, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂
Also, I’m open to suggestions so feel free to leave a comment or email me directly at drlagakos@gmail.com.
Affiliate discounts: if you’re still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers, Carbonshade is offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. TrueDark is running a pretty big sale HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.
20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE.
If you want the benefits of ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else.
CONSPIRACY THEORY #AITC #Nrf2 #TRPV1 #TRPA1