Host Defense Information — Mushroom Information

From cognition and mood support to energy and stamina, each mushroom species used in Host Defense® Mushrooms™ supplements offers a unique range of potential health benefits. But one thing that each species has in common is the ability to offer immune support. One of the great things about beneficial mushroom mycelium supplements is their ability to support an engaged and balanced immune response.*

How do mushroom mycelium supplements support the IMMUNE SYSTEM?

• The immune system is activated by polysaccharides, terpenes, and other compounds found in mushroom mycelium and fruitbodies.*
• Each beneficial mushroom species contains a wide variety of nutrients and compounds to support our natural immunity.*
• The variety and multitude of nutrients found in mushrooms is the key to immunomodulation.*

What is IMMUNOMODULATION?

• Immunomodulation is the regulatory adjustment of the immune system to bring it into balance.
• Immune cell modulation is important because we don’t want to simultaneously activate every immune cell at full strength. 

Beneficial MUSHROOMS are immunomodulators:*

• Mushrooms regulate the immune system to support long-term health by maintaining a balanced immune response.* 

HOST DEFENSE® supplements can be used every day to help:

• Augment and regulate the body’s immune system.*
• Provide support for daily environmental stressors.*
• Provide polysaccharides to increase the activity & impact of NK cells and macrophages.* 

We’ve compiled a chart to quickly reference the range of benefits provided by some of the most popular beneficial mushroom species: Agarikon, Chaga, Cordyceps, Lion’s Mane, Maitake, Reishi, and Turkey Tail:

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.  These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Paul Stamets sits down with After Skool to talk about why Host Defense® uses mycelium in all our mushroom supplements. At Host Defense®, we're dedicated to furthering research on mushrooms, mushroom mycelium, and finding new and innovative mycological ways to support human and planetary health.

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An unavoidable fact that affects all life on this planet—including humans and fungi—is that we age. When we are young, the number of downstream cell divisions is vast, but incrementally declines as we grow older. Recently, cell division limiting factors have been attributable to a shortening of telomeres, the protective region at the end of the chromosome, and the role that the enzyme telomerase plays in the repairing and replication of chromosomal DNA. These models serve to explain what we all know: as we age, we become less vital and more susceptible to disease.

The same is true with mushroom strains. In the 1980's, I developed the proprietary Stamets P Value® system for tracking the age of strains, as measured by their successive growth over a nutrient-filled petri dish. When a strain is first isolated from a mushroom in the wild, and getting the mycelium to grow from the mother mushroom onto a petri dish, it is labeled P-1. After a week or so, the strain will be transferred to a new petri dish which is then designated as P-2, and with each successive transfer, the P Value increases accordingly. This has proven to be an important method for both maintaining strains at peak vitality. The P Value system is key to providing our customers with fungal strains with the greatest efficacy and genetic vitality.

Mushrooms have immune systems just like people. Over the years, I have received mushroom cultures from fellow mushroom enthusiasts, with no information on their age. Often these cultures would suddenly slow in their growth, become more susceptible to disease or even stop growing altogether. Strains that were progressively cultured from low P Values out-performed the very same strains that had high P Values. The strains that we isolate here at Host Defense are kept close to their wild genetic origins, maintaining exceptional vigor and disease resistance. We are able to keep the P Value low by making sufficient backups of the cultures during the original culturing, and storing pure master cultures under deep refrigeration in our mycological laboratories. In essence, most of our mushroom strains are genetically just a few weeks old, even though some of the rarer strains may have been isolated decades ago.

In mushroom culture, small mistakes make for big problems. Even today I am surprised at how unfamiliar many culture libraries are with the importance of maintaining young cultures. Amongst the general public, most people do not realize that a small fragment of tissue, the size of your little finger nail, is expanded into hundreds or even thousands of pounds of fungal biomass in a short period of time. Unless the strains have sufficient vitality, they will often fail to produce healthy, vigorous mycelium, containing all the beneficial compounds found in identical strains growing in the wild. What this ultimately means is that the consumer may be getting a product that is far inferior to ones grown from younger strains of mushrooms.

With Host Defense's nearly four decades of experience, a verifiable chain-of-custody, and the use of stringent quality-assurance tools such as the P Value system, we strive to provide the highest quality products available in the world today. From the Forest, to Our Farm, to You™.

—Paul Stamets

For educational purposes only. © 2013 Paul E. Stamets and Fungi Perfecti, LLC, All rights reserved.