Reishi cramps/diarrhea, any Reishi gurus here?

So, really, even the ethanol-soluble compounds are preserved because you recombine the extract with the raw materials? That seems like a very economical way to make a lower-potency extract (and anyone reading these comments should keep in mind that, even at 1:1, a dehydrated mushroom powder has a 1:10 weight equivalency with the fresh mushroom).

You don't lose anything with the 1:1 products we sell, as all the mushroom material is kept in. For more concentrated extracts like 10:1, you lose some of the material in making it more concentrated. That's how you get the more concentrated. You have to get rid of a lot of the mushroom material. So the compounds that are soluble, like triterpenoids, get concentrated. However, the other compounds that are not as soluble go down in %. You use a ton more mushroom material to make 1kg of the 10:1 extracts.

And yes, the dehydrated 1:1 extracts have a higher weight equivalency, due to the extraction of the water. You also get all the vitamins, minerals, and other less soluble compounds that would be in the natural mushroom. They are just not concentrated for specific soluble (water, ethanol, or both) compounds. This is why I went with all 1:1 to start, as they are the most like eating a natural mushroom, just with the chitin broken down so that humans can absorb it.

In my discussion with RM, though, he said that a lot of the beta glucans that are conserved via lower extraction concentrations are mostly bound up in starch, and may not even have a benefit. I suppose you would argue that pancreatic amylase can take care of that, though, and make the glucans bioavailable?

Starch is bioavailable, and as you said, will be broken down by amylase. You are not going to lose beta-glucans that way. As long as you break down the chitin, you will be able to absorb it from the mushroom powder. If you did not break down the chitin, then we could not absorb it, since humans do not have the chitinase enzyme. Beta-glucans from mushrooms consist mainly of short β(1, 6) branches coming off a β(1, 3) backbone, without the extra β(1, 3) branches extending out further. This makes them more bioavailable than other types of beta-glucans. Solubility of the beta-glucans does not directly correlate to absorption, because enterocytes facilitate the transportation of β(1,3)-glucans and similar compounds across the intestinal cell wall into the lymph. M cells within the Peyer’s patches physically transport the insoluble whole glucan particles into the gut-associated lymphoid tissue. So just because a beta-glucan is insoluble, does not mean it is not bioavailable, due to active transport in the intestinal walls. However, it not being soluble does affect how much comes over in concentrated extracts; which is why they have less beta-glucans than the 1:1 extracts. I'll speak with Nammex about that claim, though.

What RM was saying about testing is the Megazyme beta glucan analysis (which is now industry standard per the AOAC) using HCL is what what showing the 35% beta-glucan amounts. However, if you use H2SO4 instead of HCL in the test, the beta-glucan content goes up in the analysis for Reishi and Poria, to over 50% in some cases. So using a different acid in the analysis showed that there are actually more beta-glucans in certain mushrooms than were being analyzed using the HCL method. The beta-glucan amounts we list on the site are from the HCL method. So there could be even higher beta-glucan amounts in the 1:1 Reishi and Poria than stated.

Also, do you think that a more concentrated extract would provide less or more of a diuretic effect? I didn't like what reishi does to my urinary system, but it seems to help a lot with my gastroparesis, and that's far more nootropic than any dang 'ole triterpenoid.

The concentrated extract should have less diuretic effect, due to having lower amounts of ACE inhibitors. However, I have not tried them yet. So that is only going off research I can find.