Erinacine extract status update?

Ohh man, so much news! I can't release a lot of the details, as we have made some big discoveries that we will be publishing in scientific journals, and we will be filing some patents around it. However, I will give you a high level overview.

So the main argument for years has been lion's mane fruiting bodies vs. mycelium, right? There were a couple rat studies that showed erinacine-A was the main NGF activating compound in lion's mane, and that was only found in the mycelium. The main issue was that there were no reference standards or testing methods for it, so we could only go off what these limited studies were claiming. Well after many years and LOT of time, effort, money, and work, we have finally confirmed that in the lab. We have isolated and created our own erinacine reference standards, and have confirmed pretty conclusively that erinacines are not present in the fruiting body of lion's mane. Case closed, right? That means we need the mycelium? Well what about all the positive effects people are getting from the fruiting body? What about the human clinical research showing lion's mane fruiting body has positive effects in humans? Some people thought that maybe erinacines were being created in the fruiting body, and we just didn't see them in those few studies. However, that is not the case. Even most lion's mane mycelium doesn't create erinacines. You have to grow it in very specific conditions for it to be made, and you have to harvest the mycelium at a very specific time. We have figured all that out now, and are using the knowledge to create our own cultured lion's mane mycelium standardized to erinacines. We've also tested all the shit on the market claiming to have erinacines, and it's all just BS. We have not found appreciable amounts of erinacines in any of these supposed mycelium extracts standardized to it. One of the biggest hurdles is that there is a compound in lion's mane mycelium that fluoresces just like erinacine-A, but it is not an erinacine. Most of the vendors in this space are not even testing their shit, but the ones that do are likely seeing this other compound and assuming it is erinacine-A. These are not easy things to solve in the lab. I have two PhD researchers working together on this lion's mane project, and we are at the 2 year mark for that effort. One of our researchers is the most cited lion's mane researcher in the world. Solving these lab questions is a big task. However, it is a task we finally made breakthroughs on.

So back to the fruiting body thing. How can the fruiting body of lion's mane have strong effects and evidence for it working in humans if there are no erinacines in it? Is it really the hericenones? NOPE!!! We found a new class of compounds similar to erinacines, but that are made in much higher amounts in the fruiting bodies! These compounds are likely what is leading to the NGF effects we are seeing in the fruiting bodies. Everyone was so focused on erinacines and hericenones that they completely missed the real main actives in lion's mane! We also found another compound never before seen in fungi. This compound is seen in molds, but as far as we can tell nobody has ever found it in mushrooms. We have! So our efforts have not just been to improve our understanding of how to make a high quality cultured lion's mane mycelium. We quite literally found some breakthrough information that will change lion's mane standardization across the world! This data is going to be published in scientific journals, probably sometime this year. Right now we are working on purifying the compounds we have found into the 95% level to be used as reference standards, and are also working on quantification methods to measure them in any lion's mane fruiting body product. Once our data is finalized, then we will be writing the paper and publishing the information.

So that is where we are. I realize it can be frustrating waiting so long for something cool. Trust me, I want things to move faster all the time, too. However, real science in the lab takes time. Doing things right is never quick or easy. However, the end result will be so much more than if we just jumped right into things to try and profit quicker. When we release a new lion's mane, I want people to know how much work went into it. I don't just want to release a new product for people to buy. I want to push the scientific understanding of mushrooms forward. We will be releasing a lion's mane mycelium product, which will be very cool. I have personally tried one of our R&D extracts standardized to real erinacine-A, and it feels like no other lion's mane product out there. However, this new discovery means we will also be releasing new lion's mane fruiting body extracts as well! The final products will be worth the wait.