Full Spectrum Mycoproducts 

There is a lot of confusion today from all the marketing claims on the internet about what form of mushroom product is the best to use. Some say it is the fruitbody, or the mycelium, or a hot water extract standardized for some particular compound. This is an important question and the answer should be based in scientific fact, not on historical usage or on someone's opinion. There is a lot of amazingly complex bio-chemistry going on in the mushroom kingdom which can be valuable for its health giving potential. We have accurately addressed this issue here so you can decide which health supplement raw materials are the best for your use or for use in your product formulation. 
 
Let's start with some Definitions 
 
Fruitbody
‘Fruitbodies’ are the mushrooms you see growing out of the ground or from that old dead tree. They are the reproductive part of the organism, like the flower of a plant. Just like flowers will only bloom during a certain season, Fruitbodies will only form in response to some stress in the environment, such as heat, or cold, fire or flood, running out of food, or some other stress that forces the organism into a “reproduce or die” mode. The mushroom fruitbodies that you see are NOT the growth form of the mushroom organism. It is strictly the reproductive part of the fungus at the end of its life cycle. 
 
Mycelium
‘Mycelium’ is the growth form of the organism. This is the state in which all of the life processes occur, such as growth, feeding and competing for survival (including antibiotic, antifungal and antiviral compound production). In cultivated mushroom products, the mycelium can be grown by fermentation in a tank full of liquid as beer and wine are “grown”. This is a highly unnatural growth condition, and mushrooms grown this way do not have the same chemical profiles as those that are grown naturally. Another way that medicinal mushroom mycelium can be grown is on a solid substrate of some material that it would normally grow on – which is the natural growth condition. For production of most mushroom-derived drugs, the compounds are extracted not from the mycelium, but are actually extracted from the broth or substrate the mycelium is grown in. 
 
Extracts
‘Extract’ is a word that covers a lot of possibilities. Extracts are usually made from either mushrooms or mycelium, which are extracted with some type of solvent with the intention of concentrating some desirable portion and eliminating or reducing some non-desirable portion of the fungus. There are a number of solvents which are used, depending on which type of compounds the extractor is hoping to concentrate. The two most common solvents used are Alcohol and Water. Extracts tend to be more expensive than raw materials and they may be either more potent or less potent than the raw material, depending upon which compounds are being concentrated and the desired end use of the material. The widely held belief that extracts are somehow “more potent” than other forms of mushroom material is too simplified to be true, and is simply incorrect. But this thinking is the result of historical usage and dubious internet marketing claims, as you will read below. The following section should make it clear so you will understand how extracts are made, what their uses are, and why there is so much misunderstanding about them.
 
Full Spectrum
‘Full Spectrum Myco-Products’ are the complete fungal material consisting of all the biologically active components, such as the mycelium, the fruitbodies, the spores and by far the most important of all, the extra-cellular compounds that are produced throughout the entire life cycle of the organism. It is these extra-cellular compounds (compounds that are excreted outside of the cell and into the surrounding environment) that are responsible for the main medicinal properties known from the fungal kingdom, such as all the antibiotic properties, antiviral properties, antifungal properties and all the other ‘survival’ compounds that the fungus produces to give itself an advantage over the competing bacteria and microbes in the highly competitive environment in which it lives. These secondary metabolites have opened up the frontiers of medicine, with such breakthroughs as antibiotics and cholesterol lowering drugs. And it is these properties that are removed through most extraction processes.  It is only in the 21st century that science has developed practical ways to reliably produce full spectrum myco-products which are now considered the current “Gold Standard” for most mushroom based dietary supplements.

           Basis for Quality Determination in Medicinal Mushrooms
 
 History
While medicinally active mushrooms have certainly been collected from nature and used for a long time, the cultivation of mushrooms specifically for the production of medicinal compounds is a new science, dating only from the late 1970's. Since that time there have been a number of bio-active ‘compounds of interest’ identified from mushrooms including different compounds from the fruitbodies, from the mycelium and from the residual culture broth or solid substrate residue. In almost every case, the main cellular components found in the different life stages are identical. But there are differences in the ‘secondary metabolites’ produced, where substantially greater amounts of particular compounds can be extracted from one growth stage as compared to some other growth stage. Many examples of this can be seen in the scientific article authored by Dr. Solomon Wasser: Medicinal Properties of substances occurring in Higher Basidiomycetes Mushrooms: Current Perspectives (Review) [pdf] published in - International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms.
 
The Process in Detail
Mushrooms belong to the Kingdom of Fungi. It has been known for a long time that all the fungi produce potent bioactive compounds with medicinal properties. A classic example of this fungal-derived class of medicines is the antibiotics, 99% of which come from fungi. Nearly all of the research done since the discovery of the first fungal antibiotic in 1928 (Penicillin) has shown that the primary bio-active compounds are the extra-cellular ones, which means they are released out of the cells and into the immediate environment around the growing mycelium. These are the compounds which digest the fungal foods, that transport the nutrients back across the cell wall, and that the fungi produce in order to protect themselves from bacteria and other microbes. Over the life span of a fungus fully 95% of all the bioactive compounds produced are excreted out of their cells and into their surrounding environment. Good examples of the production of fungal bioactive compounds are the beer and wine industries. In those cases the substrate is fruit juice or malt extract or some other source of sugars, vitamins and minerals, and the fungus species used is a brewers yeast called Saccromyces cerevisiae. As the fungus grows (just like all mushrooms, all yeasts are fungi) it secretes into its immediate environment (the tank full of juice or malt, called the ‘substrate’) all of the bioactive ‘compounds of interest’, which are the alcohols, the colors and flavorings. These are all found in the substrate and not in the yeast. If one were to strain out all the yeast from the liquid and try to sell that for wine or beer, it would not be a very popular product. Rather the spent yeast is more of a carrier and the more important compounds are those that were left behind in the substrate. It is very much the same with mushrooms: The mushroom fruitbodies are the spent fungal tissue at the very tail end of their life span, and they typically have the lowest concentration of bioactive compounds present, while the mycelium is the growing portion and consequently contains a much higher proportion of the extra-cellular bioactive metabolites. But by far the majority of these extra-cellular ‘compounds of interest’ are found in the substrate in which the fungus was grown. Just like spent brewers yeast does contain some health giving properties, so also does the mushroom contain some health giving properties. But to realize the full potential of the medicinal mushrooms, it is important to capture all of the different classes of compounds which were produced duringthe life cycle. This includes the cell wall material (polysaccharides), which are the same in the fruitbodies and the mycelium, but also all the extra-cellular compounds with their wide ranging health benefits. These compounds would be in the residual broth for mushroom products grown by liquid tank fermentation, or in the solid substrate residue for mushrooms grown by solid state fermentation. 
 
Knowing this, the question becomes "What is the most practical way to produce medicinal mushroom products with the greatest effectiveness, while keeping them affordable enough for the general public?"  Even just ten years ago this was a problem because solid state fermentation had not yet been perfected, and growing mushrooms in liquid culture as with beer or wine requires extraction of the compounds left behind in the broth in order to capture all the health properties. This processing step raises the cost beyond what is practical for most people to spend on their dietary supplements. It is easy for a company to purchase wild collected mushrooms, or to grow mushroom fruitbodies on a farm and then extract them for supplement uses. To produce medicinal mushroom products with low potency is counterproductive, since they will not have a large consumer following if they do not work. So most companies take the easy approach of growing or buying mushroom fruitbodies, and then making a tea which is spray dried and called a “hot water extract”. Many claim this is the best form to use, or even that it is the only bioactive way to use mushrooms, which is of course nonsense, since mushrooms have been eaten for their health properties for thousands of years. The concept that extracts are better than anything else is yesterday’s science and it does not reflect today’s state-of-the-art knowledge. These “hot water extracts” are certainly better than trying to digest hard woody fruitbodies such as Reishi, but this extraction process entirely misses the potential health benefits which are offered by the extra-cellular compounds, which are not present in the fruitbodies. Some other companies will just grow the mycelium. This can be a better choice than fruitbodies if grown in solid substrate, but the mycelial products can be a problem if they are not produced according to strict GMP biotechnology sterile tissue culture standards, and some mycelium products often contain up to 70% of unconverted substrate, like rice or wheat.  All A. Medicinals products are guaranteed to contain less than 2% of residual substrate material in the finished product. 
 
In developing our production processes, A. Medicinals looked long and hard at the chemistry of the wild collected fruitbodies, of the mycelia and of the extra-cellular compounds, and all that was known about the bioactivity of each in the human body. We then developed special growing methods including custom made growing chambers, strictly defined growth substrates (no sawdust, straw or compost is used) and specially modified growth parameters such as full year-round climate control for temperature, light cycle, and air quality and composition to maximize the production of the targeted medicinal compounds. By controlling each and every aspect of the growth cycle, A. Medicinals is able to produce the best quality, the most potent and the most consistent medicinal mushroom products available anywhere in the world today, while ensuring against all possible contamination of heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides or insect residue as is so common in other mushroom products. 
 
One great advance A. Medicinals made to the science of mushroom growing is our patent-pending proprietary methods for growing mushrooms in glass and plastic containers for a long enough period of time to completely bio-convert all of the raw substrate material into fungal tissue and extra-cellular compounds. By the time of harvest we have obtained all of the different health giving aspects that the mushroom present. This long growth period takes at least several months, and for some species it can take up to two years. When a supplier promises they can deliver a finished, custom grown product in 30 to 45 days, you can be certain that the quality will be very low. In nature it takes from months-to-years for a mushroom colony to become established. That is why you find mushrooms growing in the same place year after year. They produce mushrooms every spring just like a tree produces flowers, but the mushroom organism itself exists from year to year in the soil below. To think that we can trick that organism into optimal growth in the lab in just a few weeks is wishful thinking indeed. But this is what many mushroom cultivators claim to do.
 
For some species, We have has resorted to extreme culture parameters; for example we grow out our Cordyceps sinensis for a period of time in a warm, oxygen rich environment, after which we drastically lower the temperature to just above freezing, we change the light cycle and we drop the oxygen to no more than 50% of the normal atmospheric content. All of this is done on an organic, vegetarian substrate with no insect or animal substances used. While this may seem extreme compared to how other cultivators grow their medicinal mushroom products, A. Medicinals is proud to point out the products we make are the best quality, highest potency medicinal mushroom products in the world. This is proven by the phenomenal growth A. Medicinals has experienced over the last 10 years, making us the largest cultivators of exclusively Certified Organic Medicinal Mushrooms today with a monthly production capacity of nearly 200 tons of finished products per month. We currently supply over 700 companies with the raw material used in their formulations, and in 2009 we exported to 56 countries, which won us the U.S. Department of Commerce “Exporter of the Year” Award, the second year in a row we were awarded special recognition for our quality products.
 
If you want the best medicinal mushroom products available today, A.Medicinals is your best choice. 100% Certified Organic by USDA and EU, 100% Certified Kosher by Star K, and 100% Guaranteed. It does not get any better than this. Certified Organic and 100% made in America with all-American ingredients. Why risk the reputation of your products on imported raw materials, when the best quality is available right here in America, using state of the art science and Independently Assayed by FDA certified labs for DNA and Analytical profile.