Supplying Quality Mushroom Products - Since 1997

    

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NEW  Medicinal Mushrooms - A Clinical Guide by Martin Powell

 

Addresses the key clinical questions:

 • Which is the best mushroom for the patient?
• What is the best form to give it in?
• What is an appropriate dose? 

Including sections on:

• Understanding Mushroom Products 
• Medicinal Mushrooms in Cancer Therapy
• Medicinal Mushrooms for Other Conditions

 128 pages full colour

SPECIAL OFFER - £15.95 (RRP £19.95)

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Mushroom of the Month

Each month we will be highlighting a particular mushroom. This month it is the Taiwanese mushroom Antrodia camphorata (Antrodia cinnamomea). Taiwanese name - Niu Chang Chih. 

In the wild A. camphorata grows solely on the tree Cinnamomum kanehirai, a species of cinnamon that grows at altitudes of between 450 and 2,000m in the mountains of Taiwan. As the fruiting body only develops fully once the tree is dead, in the past many trees were felled to supply demand for this unique and extremely lucrative mushroom (wild A. camphorata fetches up to US$15,000/kg) and this, coupled with the fact that C. kanehirai itself is highly sought for furniture manufacture, has severely depleted numbers of C. kanehirai, with the result that it is now protected by the Taiwanese government.

To replace the wild-collected material, commercial cultivation of A. camphorata has been developed using a variety of techniques to produce either cultivated fruiting body, pure mycelium (grown by submerged cultivation), or mycelial biomass (mycelium and residual substrate). Levels of triterpenes are highest in the fruiting body products, which are also the most expensive, and lowest in the biomass products, with submerged cultivation mycelial products offering a cost effective intermediate option.

A. camphorata has a wide range of traditional indications, including: alcohol intoxication, cancer, hypertension, fatigue, viral infection and liver disease and is starting to attract interest from clinicians because of its exceptionally high concentration of triterpenoid compounds and their structural diversity. Other important bioactive compounds include polysaccharides, maleic/succinic acid derivatives, benzenoids and benzoquinone derivatives.

Click here to learn more about this mushroom.