Why doesn't Nootropics Depot and Real Mushrooms provide terpene % for lion's mane?

My pleasure! There is a lot of misinformation out there at the moment, and it only seems to be stepping up as of late. I might try to get more involved to help clarify things for people. We've been getting a lot of support emails regarding this terpene thing. It's crazy that one company can just start making up standardizations without any scientific evidence or basis behind them, then use propaganda tactics to try and get people onboard with this made-up new standard to sway people.

It would be like me saying that our rhodiola rosea has 4% quinones, but I show no scientific evidence of that, there are no standards for the specific quinones I am targeting, there are no validated methods for testing those quinones, no legitimate lab will put their name on any quinone results, and nobody even knows why we care about total quinones to begin with. Then I start trying to get everyone to ask our competitors why they are not standardizing to quinones. I also start trying to convince people that my competitors are trying to silence people for bringing up the "real truth" behind things, when they are likely just as confused as everyone else as to what the hell we are on about with this quinone thing.

Erinacines and hericenones are technically diterpenoids in the cyathane class. However, nobody refers to them as terpenes. When people talk about terpenes, they are usually referring to things like D-limonene, alpha-pinene, myrcene, linolool, etc. There are also thousands of terpenes. Trying to standardize to total terpenes in a lion's mane product is just silly. Thinking a simple HPLC test for terpenes tells you anything of value is also silly. It's much more complicated than that. There are scientifically valid ways of doing things. There are also disingenuous ways you can misuse science to give numbers you want to see, or just straight up creating lies to sway people. I could just BS everyone and say ours has 12% terpenes! Anyone can say anything they want, and most people are not scientifically informed enough to tell the difference. Both my company and Real Mushrooms are members of the AOAC. My lab director actually just got back from an AOAC conference. The AOAC has been around since 1884, and sets standards for all sorts of things worldwide. They are the primary authority on the analysis of mushroom products, and they currently have no methods or standards for testing erinacines and hericenones, nor do they list total terpenes as something one would test for in lion's mane. Anyone trying to make up standardizations without trying to get the AOAC onboard is just being disingenuous. Trying to take an terpene HPLC method and apply it to lion's mane shows a complete misunderstanding of analytical chemistry. I would not even use HPLC to test for common terpenes in a cannabis product. It's the wrong methodology for that purpose.

You can read this quick blog for a good idea of why: https://blog.restek.com/?p=33071

You can get numbers, but their accuracy is questionable. This is why a UPLC-MS/MS or GC-MS/MS is needed. HPLC is great for a lot of things, but not this. Even if it was, we don't have valid standards for the actual compounds we are interested in yet: the erinacines and hericenones. Even if the terpene numbers gotten from an HPLC method were accurate (they aren't), what specific terpenes are in that number? There are a ton that will be throwing that number off, even if the number itself was accurate. Nobody that actually understands chemistry would put that as a standardization on their product. Ask any analytical chemist about this situation, and they will tell you how inaccurate it is. I have actual scientists that are working on solving the erinacine and hericenone analysis issue. You can be sure the moment we have solved it we are going to be having a big discussion about the whole thing, and getting the AOAC involved with validation and standardization. We are not going to be making up numbers and trying to get everyone to berate our competitors. I love this stuff, and half of what I do is because I want to advance things. You can rest assured that I am doing everything I possibly can to not only make sure our products are as good as they can be, but advance the analytical standards and scientific competency of the industry as a whole.