In traditional Chinese culture, Reishi mushroom is called a special grass. Reishi mushroom has more than 2000 years of history to be used in medicine, and it is called ‘grass that can cure hundreds of diseases’, also, since it can be kept dry for ten thousand years without turning bad, it is also called ‘ten thousand years mushroom’. In many old fairy tales and martial arts novels, Reishi mushroom even has immortality function.
Why is Reishi mushroom and so special?
In traditional Chinese culture, there is a fairy tale called ‘Story of the white snake’. In this fairy tale, the white snake turn itself into a human lady, named Suzhen. She fell in love with a human guy named Xuxian and formed their own family. But there was this one time that Suzhen turned into snake in front of Xuxian. Xuxian fainted to death due to great fear, and Suzhen stole a special grass to save her lover Xuxian. It was said that this special grass is Reishi mushroom. In traditional Chinese culture, Reishi mushroom not only can help people live a long and healthy life, it can also cure various kind of diseases from cold to cancer, and it can even bring dead people alive.
From ancient time, Reishi mushroom is a very rare and expensive medicine, and is called a special grass. But with a modern perspective, we know that even though Reishi mushroom has strong functions, it does not come from a miracle. Basically, Reishi mushroom is a kind of fungi, belongs to Porous bacteria. Let’s put it in our every day language, Reishi mushroom is just a special kind of mushroom.
From a modern nutrition perspective, Reishi mushroom has many kinds of amino acids, proteins, alkaloids, coumarin, steroids, triterpenes, volatile oil, mannitol, resin, carbohydrate and vitamins. It has great effects on cardiovascular, digestive, neurotology system, endocrine, respiratory system and motion system diseases, and it is also effective to prevent and manage liver diseases, infection, anemia, and aging. According to traditional Chinese medicine books, Reishi mushroom has many great functions. In traditional culture, Reishi mushroom means longevity and happiness.
Reishi mushroom is a kind of large fungi, it has Reishi mushroom triterpenes, Reishi mushroom polysaccharides, steroids, nucleosides, alkaloids, vitamins, minerals and enzymes. According to modern medicine, the main pharmacological activities of Reishi mushroom includes anti-cancer, protect immune system, antioxidation, lowering blood pressure, manage blood lipid, anti-allergy, help with short of breath, anti-aging and anti-radiation. In clinical practice, Reishi mushroom and Reishi mushroom products are used widely in chronic bronchitis, coronary heart disease, hepatitis, hyperlipidemia, neurasthenia, leukopenia and muscular dystrophy.
Why does Reishi mushroom have so many pharmaceutical effects?
Because Reishi mushroom has a variety of effective compound in it. Also, Reishi mushroom can help human body to achieve the state of balance. Traditional Chinese medicine emphasize balance, and Reishi mushroom is great at balancing human body. What this means is that, if the human body has a balanced internal environment, and it is also in balance with the external environment at the same time, usually this person is very healthy.
Though a great ingredient Reishi mushroom is, it is also toxic. There are currently more than 200 kinds of Reishi mushroom known in today’s world, with about 120 kinds in China alone. Just like mushroom, some kinds of Reishi mushroom is of great pharmaceutical value, others not so much, some Reishi mushroom are even toxic. Based on a lot of clinical practices and lab experiments, it is proven that among all Reishi mushroom, red Reishi mushroom is with the best functions and pharmaceutical effects. If the fungi are not good enough, after many years of cultivation, the Reishi mushroom grown from fungi will even degenerate with lower number of effective compounds. So, when choosing Reishi mushroom products, we have to learn about what kind of Reishi mushroom it is. Cultivated Reishi mushroom is better than wild Reishi mushroomWhat is the performance of wild Reishi mushroom? Is it toxic? How to tell the differences between cultivated and wild Reishi mushroom? Which is better, the cultivated one or the wild one? Becaue Reishi mushroom needs certain environment to grow, and since wild Reishi mushroom cannot choose its environment, so it cannot be guaranteed safety. Especially with pollution in today’s world, many wild Reishi mushroom has too much heavy metal in it, especially mercury. If taking these kinds of wild Reishi mushroom for a long time, patients would suffer from even worse health. Compared with wild Reishi mushroom, the cultivated Reishi mushroom is grown in better temperature and humidity, and the environment is not polluted. So the cultivated Reishi mushroom is more safe.
In ancient times, people only knew that Reishi mushroom as a whole has medical functions. With modern technology, scientists found that Reishi mushroom spores are the essence of Reishi mushroom, it has great amount of Reishi mushroom triterpenes and Reishi mushroom polysaccharides. Reishi mushroom has its own growth cycle, it needs to be harvested once it matures. Cultivated Reishi mushroom is harvested on time, but the wild ones will lose its valuable Reishi mushroom spores due to untimely harvest. And this can cause Reishi mushroom to lose all its special functions. Based on above information, we think with modern technology, cultivated Reishi mushroom is better than the wild ones. Wrong concepts in taking Reishi mushroom. Reishi mushroom is always considered a great medicine to health, but there are some wrong concepts in taking Reishi mushroom. Though it seems easy, there are a few things we need to pay attention.
There are mainly two ways to take Reishi mushroom in everyday life:
- Reishi mushroom cooked in hot waterCut Reishi mushroom into thin slices and then cook it in hot water, this is considered a traditional way to take Reishi mushroom medicine products. Many patients cook Reishi mushroom in hot water for two to three hours, it is thought that the longer it cooked, more of Reishi mushroom’s effective compound will be soluble in the water.But this is not a correct conception. Overtime cooking in hot water will generate purine in water and this is bad to our health. Also, Overtime cooking will also lose Reishi mushroom’s effective compound, and the insoluble compounds in Reishi mushroom cannot be extracted with long hours of cooking.
- Reishi mushroom powderGrind the Reishi mushroom into powder and take orally. It needs to make sure that the powder’s diameter is less than 10um so that it can be taken in by our body directly, and normal technology cannot achieve this.We have mentioned before that the spores in Reishi mushroom is the real valuable part. So take Reishi mushroom spore powder is the most effective way. Reishi mushroom, help to protect you and your family’ s health.