Comment · Sat, May 3, 2025 · ND Owner
Sleep Support combined with Tauromag and Magnesium Glycinate
Original post in this thread
shellvin1234 · 3 points
Hey guys,
I have taken Tauromag and Magnesium glycinate before bed and it has been decent for sleep so far. I was considering adding Sleep Support (because of neuroprotective effects) along with the Tauromag and Magnesium glycinate. Is this overkill?
What they were answering
ProperBeat · 2 points
My main point was that we were trying to reach that NATIVELY, without any extraction at all.
But how can you guarantee bioavailability if the product is not extracted I wonder? AFAIK extraction is key to guarantee bioavailability. You need to convert potent raw material into a potent extract. Which will push the price up.
I continued my DeepSeek Q&A (got the hang of it, soon will be the cordyceps mr. know-it-all 😅)
Here's what I got:
Degradation Risks
Heat + water hydrolyzes cordycepin into inactive metabolites (e.g., 3'-deoxyinosine)[*].
Enzymatic degradation: Endogenous adenosine deaminase (ADA) in raw C. militaris converts cordycepin to 3'-deoxyinosine unless inactivated (e.g., via ethanol).
Result: Even with high-cordycepin raw material, hot water extracts typically yield only 0.1–0.5% cordycepin (vs. 1–2% with alcohol).
//
For therapeutic cordycepin:
Avoid pure hot water extracts (unless paired with alcohol steps).
Verify lab reports for ADA inhibition (pentostatin activity).
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
But how can you guarantee bioavailability if the product is not extracted I wonder? AFAIK extraction is key to guarantee bioavailability. You need to convert potent raw material into a potent extract. Which will push the price up.
That's the traditional thought, and the idea spread around by a bunch of brands. However, it is not supported by the science. It all stems from the idea that the cell walls of mushrooms are made up of chitin, and humans don't have a chitinase enzyme. The thing is that we do have multiple pathways to break down chitin in-vivo. In the past 10-20 years, we have determined that the idea that humans lack chitinase enzymes has been proven demonstrably incorrect. There are two distinct direct chitinase pathways in the human body.
* Acidic Mammalian Chitinase (AMCase)
* Chitotriosidase (CHIT-1)
Chitinase activity in human serum and leukocytes
Chitin, Chitinase Responses, and Invasive Fungal Infections
Loss and Gain of Human Acidic Mammalian Chitinase Activity by Nonsynonymous SNPs
AMCase was identified approximately 20 years ago, and functions primarily in the stomach's acidic environment. This enzyme is capable of degrading chitin into smaller, more digestible components. This enzyme in the stomach is the first step in breaking down the cell walls of mushrooms, and releasing the active compounds inside. In fact, this process might even be useful in protecting the actives from stomach acid, and delivering them to the small intestine intact. Then you have CHIT-1. CHIT-1 is produced by activated macrophages and also demonstrates chitinolytic activity. This enzyme has been detected in human leukocytes and serum, with particularly high activity in granulocytes. Both enzymes participate in the defense against chitin-containing pathogens and potentially in the digestion of chitin-containing foods. This can break down chitin after absorption. Now for AMCase, one study did show that 20% of the population might have low/now levels in their gastric juices, so that might be variable in the population, but then you have CHIT-1 to help, and the next category of things that can break down chitin in the body: probiotics.
Even if an individual's endogenous chitinase production is limited, the gut microbiome serves as a crucial secondary system for chitin digestion. Multiple gut bacteria produce chitinases capable of breaking down chitin. Clostridium paraputrificum J4 produces extracellular chitinolytic enzymes, including a 62 kDa chitinase (Chit62J4) that secures bacterial nutrition in the human intestinal tract when chitin is present.
Clostridium species are known for their chitinolytic activity, and chitinases have been identified and studied in Enterococcus faecalis. Also, bacteria from the Lachnospiraceae family, which are common gut residents, are known to degrade complex polysaccharides and may be involved in chitin hydrolysis.
So the idea that we can't absorb mushroom bioacctives without extraction is just false. We absolutely can, and the chitin can in fact be helpful as a prebiotic fiber. Moreover, we have two double blinded placebo-controlled human studies on Erinamax, which is a non-extracted lion's mane mycelium.
Those two studies are specifically on Erinamax in humans, so we know non-extracted material has statistically significant effects in humans. Then you have the below study.
That study was done on a product very similar to our Erinamax. It was a non-extracted lion's mane mycelium. So we know you do not have to extract it for it to be effective, as long as you standardize to a set amount of bioactives.
Heat + water hydrolyzes cordycepin into inactive metabolites (e.g., 3'-deoxyinosine)
We have also found this to not be the case. Enzymes are denatured by heat, so a hot water extraction process destroys the enzymes long before they hydrolyze the cordycepin.
Result: Even with high-cordycepin raw material, hot water extracts typically yield only 0.1–0.5% cordycepin (vs. 1–2% with alcohol).
It's actually a 50/50 mixture of water and ethanol that works best for cordycepin extraction, unless you start going with organic solvents. Moreover, how you extract it matters. Just doing a standard water/ethanol extraction doesn't get it all. You need other processes, like ultrasonic assisted extraction, which is actually what we use in the lab for sample prep.