New Products

By now, most of you have heard about the Maitake mushroom, Grifola frondosa. There is now enough information to place Maitake among the top medicinal mushrooms.

Research with Maitake has been primarily carried out by Dr. Hiroaki Nanba of Japan. This research has centered around Maitake's action as a Host Defense Potentiator(HDP). HDP's help activate the immune system. The person who coined this term, Dr. Goro Chihara, was originally with Japan's National Cancer Institute. Dr. Chihara discovered lentinan, an active polysaccharide fraction from the shiitake mushroom that is an approved drug for use in cancer therapy. Lentinan and other beta-glucan polysaccharides form a common link among medicinal mushrooms.

North American Reishi is pleased to offer two Maitake mushroom extracts. The premier extract is a 10:1 water extract that has been spray dried to a fine powder. There is no comparable maitake product on the market today. Our second is a 4:1 extract dried back onto a powdered mushroom base. Between them, they offer an excellent opportunity to put this popular mushroom into your product line.

National Science Council Funds Mushroom Analysis

Winter worm, summer grass - that is the common name for the highly prized Chinese tonic herb Cordyceps, or caterpillar fungus, which recently gained national publicity in a mainstream news publication(Newsweek) because of its use by Chinese women athletes engaged in breaking world running records.

A small club shaped fungus (1-4 inches long) that parasitizes caterpillars and pupae of moths, Cordyceps is available as a wild-crafted herb or a mycelial cultured extract. It is used as a tonic and tranquilizing medicine as well as for treating general debility, anaemia and lung disease. It is also one of the most common herbs in male virility formulas and recent research has demonstrated high oral activity in immunological enhancement studies.

Cordyceps has been the focus of our most recent National Research Council funded study. This study did a thorough screening of Cordyceps and was able to confirm the similarity of mycelia products to their wild counterparts. It also elucidated a compound that has shown significant anti-leukemia activity.Further studies are ongoing.

North American Reishi Goes Organic

Many of you are using our Reishi and Shiitake mycelia, which has made them our best sellers. In an effort to keep up with consumer interests, in 1992 we switched to all organic base materials on which to grow the mycelia. At the same time we went through the process of gaining organic certification through our local British Columbia certification agencies, BCARA and COABC. If you haven't already done so, now is a good time to make your customers aware of this new quality standard. We expect other products to gain organic certification soon.