Each month our editorial team sifts through hundreds of papers and curates notable findings—for practitioners and informed readers who want to stay current with the evidence. Subscribe to the monthly Research Digest for expert analysis and concise summaries of key papers.
This review describes compounds in medicinal mushrooms and how they work in lab and animal studies. It lists many possible effects, such as immune changes, anti-inflammatory and anticancer actions, and names key molecules like polysaccharides (β-glucans), terpenes, and fungal proteins. Most evidence so far comes from in vitro or animal…
Researchers had 13 healthy adults take Hericium erinaceus powder every day for seven days. They tested blood with routine blood and serum chemistry tests and checked gut bacteria using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. After the week, the gut bacterial community showed higher within-sample diversity and higher levels of several bacteria…
Polysaccharide-K (PSK, also called Krestin) is a mushroom extract widely used as an additive in cancer treatment in Asia, especially Japan. Studies over about 40 years report anti-tumor effects in laboratory experiments and in living organisms for several cancer types, but researchers say the exact ways PSK works are not…
