Are you being scammed by suppliers of medicinal herbs?
A friend of mine called last week because she was searching for a psilocybin capsules. It was a medicinal mushroom that she ordered from Hong Kong, which she wanted to gift to her aunt. However, the supplier stopped shipping mushrooms to Canada.
Yun Zhi is a Chinese mushroom that she was looking for. My friend paid around 800$ for a bottle. Yun Zhi. What is that? One might believe that 800$ would be sufficient to purchase a label with the botanical name so that people outside China are able to identify what they are buying. To discover that Yun Zhi was actually Trametes versicolor, I had foresee the need to cross-reference Chinese mushrooms names to scientific names.
My jaw hit the ground. 800$ for Trametes vericolor!! (Aka. Coriolus versicolor / Turkey Tail). If you’re a mushroom picker, chances are you’ll be thinking that you have to start picking and selling mushrooms or that your friend is being completely ripped off. T. versicolor is a common and widespread mushroom in every zone of the world. You have a 40% chance of seeing this mushroom if your have ever walked through the forest.
I had to do more research. My friend actually bought a polysaccharide supplement. These mushrooms can either be called PSK (or PSP) depending on their origin. There is strong evidence supporting their use for cancer treatment. The literature is extensive. Robert Rogers’ The Fungal Pharmacy references peer-reviewed studies showing that these extracts “inhibit proliferation of lymphoma cells by apoptosis…,” “restore antibody(IgG) production to mice with sarcoma 180…,”, raise the five-year survival rate of lung cancer victims by 400%, as well as increase the survival rates for colorectal and gastric cancer patients. Rogers writes that 16 papers were published that examined the ability of extracts to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. There were also 40 papers that looked at their ability against the immune system. Additionally, 24 studies showed that PSK/PSP increase survival rates for cancer patients. These extracts offer many health benefits.