Are you being duped by your medicinal herb suppliers
My friend, who was in search of buy shrooms online, called me last Thursday. The medicinal properties of the mushroom were what she was ordering from Hong Kong. But, her aunt had stopped being able to import it to Canada.
Yun Zhi, the Chinese name for the mushroom she was seeking, is available in a price range of 800$ to 800$ per bottle. Yun Zhi. You might think 800$ is enough to get a label with a plant name on it so that people in China don’t know what you are buying. I had the task of cross-referencing Chinese mushroom names with scientific names to determine that Yun Zhi actually Trametes Versicolor.
My jaw fell to the floor. 800$ on Trametes versicolor!! (Aka. Coriolus versicolor / Turkey Tail). If you’re a mushroom-picker, you’ll probably think either that you need to pick this stuff and then sell it, or that my friend has been totally ripped off. T. versicolor is a very common mushroom in every part of the world. This mushroom is almost certain to be present in anyone who has ever walked in the woods.
I had no choice but to dig deeper into the matter. My friend was actually buying a polysaccharide extraction. These extracts may be known as PSK or PSP depending the source of the mushrooms. There are significant clinical evidences supporting their use in treatment for cancer. There are many studies. Robert Rogers’ The Fungal Pharmacy includes peer-reviewed studies which show that these extracts can “inhibit cell proliferation in lymphoma and leukemic tissues by apoptosis…”, “restore antibodies (IgG), in mice with sarcoma 180…”, increase lung cancer survival rates by 400% over five years, and improve survival rates for colorectal or gastric cancer patients. Rogers claims that at most 16 papers have examined the effect of the extracts on cancer cell proliferation, 40 that investigated their ability for tumor growth inhibition, 13 that tested their ability for immune system protection, and 24 that found that PSK and PSP improve cancer patient survival rates. These extracts provide many health benefits.