A look at what makes the best reishi mushroom supplement and reasons to use reishi extracts in your diet
Reishi mushroom supplements continue to grow in popularity. According to Furion Analytics, the reishi supplement market is expected to continue growing by 4.88% each year till 2025.
Why are more people interested in the best reishi mushroom supplement around? It’s clearly because they’ve caught on to the reality that reishi, along with an array of other mushrooms, can help enhance and improve immunity, heart, and liver health.
Today we’re looking at what constituents make up the best reishi mushroom supplement, as well as some ways reishi mushrooms can support human health.
The best reishi mushroom supplement in liquid extract form
The reishi mushroom liquid extract we provide is a combination of hot water and alcohol. This is considered a dual extraction because both water and alcohol are used, making it possible to extract constituents from the mushroom that are both alcohol-soluble and water-soluble.
Furthermore, it is important to consider what is going into the extract itself. The tinctures and powders we provide use only mushroom fruiting bodies. This is in opposition to many mushroom supplement providers in the United States that sell mycelium on grain. You get significantly higher beta-glucan contents when you get mushroom supplements with 100% fruited bodies opposed to mycelium on grain. Not only is the beta glucan amounts higher, the fruited body extracts also have favorable amounts of polysaccharides. These constituents help with inflammation as discussed below.
Here is an excerpt from Paul Stamets’ Mycomedicinals:
“Lin et al. (1995) determined that the water extract of fruitbodies of Ganoderma lucidum induced free radical scavenging activity. Han et al. (1998), Zhou et al. (2002) and Li et al. (2000) concur that Reishi polysaccharides potentiate the release of nitric oxide while enhancing the scavenging of free radicals by peritoneal macrophages, thus making them less inflammatory while enhancing interlukin, natural killer cell activity, and tumor necrosis factors.”
Free radicals can cause damage to cells, leading to various diseases. Alleviating the amount of free radicals helps in staying healthy.
Understanding triterpenes and the best reishi mushroom supplement in powder form
Here is another excerpt from Paul Stamets’ MycoMedicinals book:
Triterpenoids—steroid-like compounds that inhibit cholesterol synthesis, allergenic response and histamines—have been detected in extracts of this mushroom (Hirotani et al., 1985). Triterpenoids are more concentrated in the fruitbodies than in the mycelium, a fact of significance for those looking for relief from bronchitis, asthmas and allergies when choosing medicinal mushroom extracts (Han et aal., 1998;Zhu et al., 1999, Luo et al., 2002).
There are clearly strong reasons to look for the best reishi mushroom supplement that is derived from the fruited mushroom bodies opposed to the supplements that involve mycelium grown on grain. Both the liquid extracts and the powder extracts that we provide are extracted fruit bodies, so you get the highest-quality, more healthful mushroom supplements available.
Reishi mushroom and immunomodulation
Immunomodulation is a word to know when considering the reishi mushroom. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, immunomodulation is defined as the, “modification of the immune response or the functioning of the immune system by the action of an immunomodulator.”
A study entitled Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects. 2nd edition has its 9th chapter dedicated to Ganoderma lucidum and refers to this mushroom as having properties like an immunomodulator. Here is an excerpt from this study:
“There is considerable evidence to support the immunostimulating activities of G. lucidum via induction of cytokines and enhancement of immunological effector (Wang et al. 1997; Zhu and Lin 2006).”
The study continues to say that this evidence comes from trials in mice.
Interested in making your own reishi mushroom tincture?
We’ve already mentioned that there are reishi mushroom supplements available from us, in both dual-extracted liquid and powder forms. You can get these from us to save time in making your own mushroom supplements.
However, we also want to empower our audience members to not only use mushroom supplements, but to make their own if desired. You can make your own liquid mushroom tinctures if you have reishi mushrooms, water, and high-proof alcohol. The process of making reishi mushroom tincture is discussed on this page, along with some additional reasons to use mushroom supplements.
Having reishi mushrooms is the first part of making a tincture. For those of you interested in the entire process, realize that you can grow your own reishis at home with a growing kit! Imagine growing your own fresh reishis and then tincturing them to get the most out of your reishi mushroom growing. The reishis mushroom growing kit is 10 pounds of colonized substrate and certified organic. Watching the reishis grow throughout its “antler” phase is exciting, and the tincture you can make once the fruited bodies are harvested will feel very rewarding. Get your reishi kit now, so you can begin growing your own reishi mushrooms at home.