Anthocyanin-fucoidan nanocomplex

There's a reason we don't, and it is not because we can't get fucoidan. I have beta tested multiple extracts before. I've even enjoyed some of them. My issue is with the lack of science on the analytical chemistry side. I don't like making claims that I can't validate in our lab, and that I can't stand behind. I don't push hype. I would rather wait years to flesh out the science more than to bring out a product solely because it is popular and hyped up at that moment.

The crux of the issue with fucoidan is characterization and testing. Fucoidan is not one thing. It's not a single chemical compound like cordycepin or erinacine A. It's not even a group of compounds like bacopasides. It's a class of compounds like beta-glucans. We really need to start calling them fucoidanS, with an s. That's what they are. They are beta-glucans of the seaweed world. We you may or may not know my involvement with beta-glucans, but it is a complicated one. Let me go back to 2014 to set the stage.

Back in 2014, we wanted to start selling mushrooms. However, I wasn't really an expert at the time, so I wanted to reach out and collaborate with someone that was. This led to my first meeting with Jeff Chilton at Nammex. In our initial conversations, he clued me into his efforts to get people to care about the issues surrounding the available products at the time, mainly Host Defense. Jeff was very passionate about trying to educate consumers on how these mycelium on grain products were not real mushrooms, and were mostly starch from the substrate they were grown on, which is brown rice in Host Defense's case. A big thing Jeff was pushing was using beta-glucan testing to tell the difference between fruiting body mushrooms and mycelium on grain. The idea being that the fruiting bodies of mushrooms don't make alpha-glucans, so their presence in a sample would indicate the sample was mycelium on grain. This was the best available strategy at the time. To test for beta-glucans, Megazyme kits are used. These are enzyme kits that break down certain polysaccharides. You then use a UV-VIS to test these. What really happens is you test total glucans, then you use the Megazyme kits to break down the beta-glucans in the sample, then you test total glucans again and calculate the difference. You are not actually testing beta-glucans. You are testing all glucans, then calculating the difference after reacting with enzymes. This is how all beta-glucan testing is done.

At first, I had no issues with it. It all seemed to make sense with what I knew at the time. I trusted that the Megazyme kits were accurately breaking down what they said they were, and were validated, because they were AOAC approved methods. I trusted that the assumptions on beta-glucans vs. alpha-glucans were correct. I just went with the information I had at the time. However, after a few years, cracks started to show. I started to question not just the relevance of the measures, but the accuracy of the methods and kits themselves. Then Megazyme came out with new kits. They said the old kits were not accurate. They were overstating the beta-glucan numbers. These new kits were totally accurate, though. How do I square that away in my head? How do I trust your new kits, when I trusted the old kits, and now you are telling me they weren't accurate? I get science and methods changing and improving over time, but some of these numbers were VERY different from each other. We took retained samples from all the mushroom species that we had, and we tested them on the old kits and the new kits, and graphed the results. Every mushroom species had different numbers on the new kits. Some more than others, but all the numbers changed. Then we pressed for more information. What changed in the kits? Why did it change. The answer we got surrounded trehalose. This is a specific type of sugar that occurs in mushrooms. These new kits had a new enzyme that breaks down trehalose, which is what is leading to the number differences. Okay, fine then. Let me go through the published research and our data, and see if I can make sense of it. The research out there shows trehalose is highest in species like maitake and shiitake. This must mean that those species have the biggest differences between the old kits and new kits, right? NOPE! It was Cordyceps that had the biggest difference? As far as I was aware, that's not a species with a lot of trehalose. WTF is going on? This led me down a path that opened up more questions than answers.

The data didn't make sense. The excuses didn't make sense. The trust was gone. I had put my name and reputation behind pushing this beta-glucan narrative for years. Now I am going to look like an idiot telling people: "Ohh, those old numbers are not accurate. You can totally trust our new numbers, though! Don't worry!" It's ridiculous! Then I started doing more testing in our lab, and doing more research around polysaccharides in general. Why do we care about beta-glucans? What are beta-glucans? Why do we not want alpha-glucans? The answers I got to those questions were all bad. It turns out chitin is a beta-glucan. It's a 1,4 branched beta-glucan, but it shows up in the numbers all the same. Well the cell walls of chitin are made up of chitin. Think of chitin in a mushroom like cellulose to a plant. It's what makes up a big part of the cell walls of mushrooms, just like cellulose makes up a big part of the cell walls of plants. So we are measuring the quality of mushrooms by measuring one of the things that is the most abundant thing in the cells of all mushrooms? That sounds ridiculous to me! We don't measure the quality of Panax ginseng by assaying how much cellulose is in it. That would be retarded. Why are we doing so for mushrooms? Who gives a flying fuck about how much cellulose is left in our plant products? Nobody. In fact, we want less cellulose. So if we can't remove chitin from the beta-glucan numbers, how can we use that as a quality marker?

Then the next nail in the coffin... well two nails. I started to find research showing there are tons of beneficial alpha-glucans in things. Some of these alpha-glucans were showing amazing effects on immune function and other areas. Wait, isn't that was everyone was marketing beta-glucans for? Wasn't the assumption that beta-glucans good, alpha-glucans bad? But now I am seeing that some alpha-glucans good! Pair that with some of the beta-glucans just being chitin, and I really start thinking WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE DOING HERE?!? We're standardizing to something, and setting it as a quality marker, with no real scientific reasoning behind it. It makes no sense. Then the second nail comes. Megazyme starts making it VERY clear that if there are any polysaccharides from other things left in there, like the grain substrate, the kits are not to be used... WAIT! That was the whole point of the fucking kits to start with! The kits were supposed to tell you when you had mycelium on grain or whole fruiting bodies. Now you are saying they cannot be used if you have any grain left in there?!? The enzymes fuck the numbers up completely if there is any polysaccharides from other sources?!? That's the WHOLE POINT! Then it got me thinking, how in the fuck can I know these enzymes are doing what they say they are doing at all? I am not talking about just the validity of what the numbers say based on the data. I am talking actual enzymatic activity itself. We just have to trust Megazyme, and that they did their validation work properly. We have to trust them that the enzymatic activity of these kits are performing at the level they state they are. They have already switched kits once. How can anyone honestly say these numbers mean anything at all?

...continued in another comment for going over 10K characters... yes, again!