Comment · Tue, October 30, 2018
Question about Terpene/Polyphenols testing
Original post in this thread
obliviron · 3 points
Hi, I have bought Lion's Mane in the past and I was wondering why the Terpene content isn't tested. Beta-Glucans are important, but they are likely secondary to the alkaloids in terms of importance for the effect profile of Lion's Mane. Can this be tested for? I understand other companies wanting to sell a lesser or shady product and not even test for B-Glucans, but now that Nammex is providing standardized B-Glucans every vendor that sources from Nammex is advertising B-Glucan content. Knowing the Terpene and the content of alkaloids unique to Lion's Mane would be more indicative of the quality of the extract.
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
That is something we are working on. It's more complex than it sounds, though. This is because you need validated methods and reference standards of what you are wanting to quantify, and the expertise needed to run those tests is pretty high. Luckily I just hired someone as our new lab director that is an analytical method development specialist. So not only does he know how to run all manner of analyses, he can develop and validate methods from scratch! That's a very advanced process, and one we have not had the expertise to do up till this point. We relied on outside labs like Alkemist for it, but they are very rigid in what they will take on sometimes. This new guy is going to be a massively beneficial addition to my team! I am very excited! He also taught chemistry at ASU for years, has developed and ran an ISO 17025 lab, and has been through three separate FDA audits. I could not have built a better candidate for this position if I tried.
We also just built a new lab and added more equipment. So not only are we bringing heavy metals testing in-house, but we are going to start developing more advanced testing methods, and hopefully starting to quantify and later standardize to less-common compounds in some of these extracts. To top it all off, I had a lengthy conversation with our new lab director about beta-glucan testing, and he thinks we are going to not only be able to bring it all in-house as well, but we are also going to develop more accurate enzymatic methods for the various mushrooms. I want to qualify and quantify these compounds too, and really start to advance our understanding of what specific compounds are in these extracts. I am finally going to have the people on my team to be able to do that! To say that I am excited is putting it mildly!!!
So long story short: yes, we are going to be improving our analyses of the specific polysaccarides, and other compounds like polyphenols, terpenes, peptides, etc.