Organic Lion's Mane Mushroom Extract Supplements

What is Lion's Mane?

Lion's Mane (Hericium erinaceus) is a white, cascading mushroom that grows on hardwood across Asia, Europe and North America. It is a culinary species before it is a supplement. Cooked fresh it is mild and faintly like crab, and it has been eaten and used in Chinese and Japanese traditions for centuries.

As a supplement it is taken for memory, focus and nerve health. The compounds usually credited are hericenones and erinacines, which in cell and animal work are associated with nerve growth factor activity.

What does the research show?

Less than most marketing implies, and more than nothing. One small double-blind trial in Japanese adults with mild cognitive impairment found improvement over sixteen weeks of daily use, with scores drifting back once people stopped. A more recent pilot in healthy young adults reported faster processing speed after a single dose and lower self-reported stress after four weeks. Both are small, and the mechanism research is preclinical.

The full citations are at the foot of the page if you want to read them yourself.

How much should I take?

One serving daily with food. That is 1,660 mg of the extract powder, a slightly heaped half teaspoon, or 900 mg in capsule form, which is three capsules. The 100 g pouch holds 60 servings, the 120-capsule bottle 40, and the 240-capsule bottle 80.

Take it every day rather than when you remember. In the trials the effect built over weeks and receded when supplementation stopped. Time of day does not matter much: unlike Reishi it is not settling, and unlike Cordyceps it is not stimulating.

Powder or capsules?

The same extract in both, at different serving sizes: 1,660 mg of powder against 900 mg in capsules. Powder is cheaper per serving and lets you adjust the dose. It dissolves in anything hot and has a mild, nutty taste that disappears into coffee. Capsules travel better and need no measuring, which is why most people stay with them. Bulk is the same powder at the lowest cost per serving.

What does 20% beta-glucans mean?

Beta-glucans are the polysaccharides most of the research on functional mushrooms is about, and the percentage is the honest way to compare two products. Ours is tested at a minimum of 20% per batch.

Watch for brands quoting a "polysaccharide" figure instead. Starch is a polysaccharide, so a product padded with grain substrate can post a high polysaccharide number while carrying very few beta-glucans.

How is it extracted?

Hot water, at 8:1. Eight kilos of dried fruiting body reduce to one kilo of extract. Hot water extraction is the traditional preparation for functional mushrooms and the method behind most of the published human research, because it is what frees the beta-glucans from the chitin cell wall that would otherwise pass straight through you.

Eating the raw mushroom does not do this. That cell wall is the reason an extract exists at all.

Fruiting body or mycelium?

This is the question that separates two products at the same price. Most cheap Lion's Mane is mycelium grown on a grain substrate and milled with the grain still in it, so a large share of what you are buying is starch.

Ours is fruiting body only. No grain, no substrate, nothing added to make up the weight.

How do you spot a weak extract?

• The label says mycelium, myceliated grain or "full spectrum" rather than fruiting body.
• No extract ratio is printed anywhere on the pack.
• A polysaccharide percentage is quoted instead of a beta-glucan percentage.
• No batch number, and no certificate of analysis you can actually open.