Champignons pour la récupération

The widest survey of the Reishi literature: 17 clinical trials covering 971 participants, at doses from 200 to 11,200 mg a day. Pooled analysis found significant improvements in BMI, serum creatinine, glutathione peroxidase and resting heart rate. Many other markers did not move, and the reviewers rate the certainty of the underlying trials as low and call for better-designed studies, which is the usual state of a field this active and this young.

Three weeks of daily supplementation was associated with a longer time to exhaustion, a higher ventilatory threshold and a higher VO2max; after one week, only time to exhaustion had improved. Read it for what it tested: the supplement was PeakO2, a six-species blend of mycelial biomass grown on oats, so nothing here is attributable to Cordyceps alone, and the three-week result comes from the 10 of 28 participants who continued that far. An encouraging early signal in a field that deserves a bigger trial.

A pilot trial in 48 patients undergoing endocrine therapy reported improved fatigue and physical wellbeing scores using Reishi spore powder. A different preparation from a fruiting body extract and a clinical setting, and an encouraging signal from a mushroom taken for exactly this reason for centuries.

A survey of the human research on Cordyceps militaris in exercise and recovery. It gathers the positive findings so far and calls for larger trials on consistently characterised preparations, which is the natural next step for an area attracting this much interest.