Mushrooms & Health - Mushroom
Nutraceutical Production
medicinal mushrooms and mushroom products
Since its inception in 1977, GMI has been cultivating mushroom products for both the culinary and the nutraceutical trades. For nutritional supplements, we focuses on mushroom mycelium, as mushrooms spend more than 90% of their life cycle in the mycelial, or vegetative stage. Our lines of mushroom mycelial biomass has been cultivated aseptically in California under strict protocol. The following medicinal mushroom species are currently in commercial production:
Latin Names | Common Names | Mushroom Types |
Agaricus blazei | (Brazilian Agaricus) | Gilled |
Flamulina velutipes | (Enokitake) | Gilled |
Lentinula edodes | (Shiitake) | Gilled |
Pleurotus ostreatus | (Oyster) | Gilled |
Cordyceps sinensis | (Caterpillar Mushroom) | Entomogenous |
Auricularia auricula | (Wood Ear) | Jelly |
Tremella fuciformis | (White Wood Ear) | Jelly |
Polyporus umbellatus | (Zhu-ling) | Polypore |
Coriolus (Trametes) versicolor | (Turkey tail) | Polypore |
Grifola frondosa | (Maitake) | Polypore |
Ganoderma lucidum | (Reishi) | Polypore |
Inonotus obIiquus | (Chaga) | Polypore |
Schizophylum commune | (Split-gills) | Gilled |
Hericium erinaceus | (Monkey Head, Bear's Head) | Toothed |
Poria cocos | (Fu-ling) | Tuberous |
Many other species are under development. We are constantly searching the world for new fungal species to study.
The advantages of our mushroom products can be summarized below:
Why Mushrooms?
Fungi are ubiquitous
Nature’s ultimate recycler
Symbiotic with green plants
The Kingdom of fungi is extraordinarily diverse
Genetically speaking, fungi are more closely related to animals than plants
Fungi are already important to human lives
Food for humans – e.g., bread, wine, cheese, soy sauce
Source of anti-biotics
Cyclosporin as anti-tissue rejection medication
Fungi physiology
Absorptive – extra cellular digestion
Somatic - hyphae/mycelium
Reproductive – mushroom fruit bodies
Extra cellular exudates– polysaccharides, ß-glucans, digestive enzymes
Cell Wall – polysaccharides, glucans, mannans, proteins, glyco-protein, lipid, chitin
Cytoplasm – golgi body – modifies proteins, segregate proteins and glyco-proteins for internal and external cellular use and cell wall growth.
Host Defense Potentiators, Biological Response Modulators
Support Immune functions
Help circulation
Detoxify metabolic wastes and environmental toxins
Mushroom Morphologies/Phenotypes
Fungi growing in different environments take on different morphologies, e.g. polypores (Reishi, Maitake, Yun-Zhi), gilled (Shiitake), insect parasitic (Caterpillar Mushroom), etc.
Different fungi coexist and compete with different sets of microbes (bacteria, viruses, fungi, insects, and many other pathogens) in their specific niche
International travel brings people from all over the world together and exposes them to different microbes from different places
A blended mushroom formula will help people deal with novel microbes more effectively
Gourmet Mushroom Products
Cultivated in California
Specially selected mushroom strains/cultures
Grown on organic substrates under aseptic and controlled environment
Consistent batch to batch quality
No artificial additives or harsh processing
Mushroom Mycelial Biomass - Our product design philosophy
Fungi are an important source of medicine, including many antibiotics, anti-tissue rejection drugs for organ transplants, cancer drugs, and anti-inflammatory products. Most of the discoveries of fungal derived medicines have gone through rigorous studies and tests, sometimes by design, and sometimes by accident.
There are many nutritional supplements being offered in the health food industry with the idea that "more is better". We have often seen materials with unidentified ingredients being presented in concentrated form extracted at different ratios (e.g. 4:1, 10:1, etc.). Some materials are identified with marker materials at certain guaranteed concentrations. However, many times, these marker materials bear no direct relationship to the efficacy of the product. These products are hyped with the catch phrase of "guaranteed potency" when the markers used had never been subjected to any rigorous test for their "potency".
The paradigm of "the more the better" can be dangerous without the backing of clinical observations. Fungi, as nutritional supplements, are used generally as an adaptogen or biological response modulator. Materials in fungi are able to modulate the bodily functions to help cope with imbalances caused by infection and diseases. Two fungal-based medicinal products have alerted us to the danger of using fungal nutritional products indiscriminately:
The above 2 examples demonstrate that we need to be careful using extracts from fungi. We do not want to inadvertently produce materials in such high concentration that may compromise our system. Fungi metabolites are adaptogenic, i.e. they work to modulate our system by way of feedback mechanisms. Too much of some materials may close a physiological feedback loop. We feel that our natural, wholesome biomass products are true nutritional supplements. We need to use carefully designed pre-clinical observations to examine the effects of concentrated mushroom extracts.
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