Comment · Mon, February 24, 2020
I am planning to buy Lion's Mane for the NGF/Neurogenesis from this place since it is highly recommended. What product would you suggest?
Original post in this thread
_Duality_ · 2 points
I was checking this page out:
https://nootropicsdepot.com/mushroom-extract-supplements/
Don't I want the mycelium for the NGF? These say fruiting body.
Thank you.
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb
The main double-blinded clinical trial on humans using Lion's Mane used whole fruiting bodies, not mycelium:
The fresh fruit bodies of Yamabusitake were air-dried at 60 °C overnight and powdered. The test food was 250 mg tablets containing 96% of Yamabushitake, prepared by adding silicon dioxide and fat to Yamabushitake powder, and tablets of the same shape containing cornstarch and lactose instead of Yamabushitake powder (Table 1). The nutrient composition of the test food is shown in Table 2. The subjects took four Yamabushitake-containing or placebo tablets three times a day for 16 weeks.
It also found they were effective in humans, and that hericenones led to the increases.
Consequently, Yamabushitake can be regarded as a useful food for the prevention of dementia without any adverse effects. This effect may be attributed to promoting NGF by hericenones, but further studies are needed to clarify the mechanism.
So we have human trials that show the fruiting bodies of Lion's Mane improve cognitive impairment. We do NOT have any human trials showing the same for mycelium products. The study often linked for mycelium only used mouse astroglial cells IN VITRO. It certainly does not settle the debate on the matter, and does not invalidate IN VIVO human research regrading the fruiting bodies of Lion's Mane.
Here is another HUMAN clinical trial using the fruiting bodies of Lion's Mane:
Reduction of depression and anxiety by 4 weeks Hericium erinaceus intake
It showed that whole fruiting body extracts of Lion's Mane significantly improved depression, sleep quality, and anxiety scores. This is valid human clinical research, not in vitro studies using mouse astroglial cells. The in vitro mouse study is certainly interesting, and we are working on a cultured mycelium extract of Lion's Mane that we can offer alongside our current fruiting body extracts. However, the human clinical research behind the effectiveness of Lion's Mane mushroom has used the fruiting bodies.
I've made a bunch of comments on the situation before, too.
So long story short, the only human clinical research on lion's mane has used the fruiting bodies. Our 8:1 dual water/ethanol extract is the most potent version of that currently. Teh crazy thing is that the studies used the equivalent of our 1:1 product. They just used powdered lion's mane fruiting bodies. Our 8:1 dual extract should be even more potent, though. We are working on a pure mycelium product, too. However, we are doing a lot of work on the analytical chemistry side to prove it is good before we offer it. Even once we offer that, we still have to wait for human clinical research on lion's mane mycelium to catch up.