Benefits of Lion’s Mane

If using Lion’s Mane for its focus benefits, make sure you get an organic, log-grown, fruiting body that has been properly extracted. Do your best to stay away from lab-grown Lion’s Mane, especially mycelium. Instead of the actual mushroom, you’re purchasing mushroom “roots” (and the filler that the roots grow in).

Often seen as ‘myceliated oats,’ the dose of mushroom is misleading because there's no way to know how much is grain versus mushroom root. Even worse, if it hasn’t been extracted, your body can’t access all the beneficial compounds in the Lion’s Mane that actually contribute to its cognitive benefits. Before looking at dosage, make sure you know what you are getting!

The real mushroom (fruiting body) that has been extracted, is organic and log-grown, is the way all folk traditions have been using these fungi. Plus, current studies show that this OG form of the mushroom contains 10-30x the amount of beneficial compounds. It’s the gold standard, to put it simply. Once the above criteria are met in a Lion’s Mane supplement, then you can start looking at dosage. Because a powder full of ground up oats with some mushroom roots, even if it’s 2000 mg, is nothing like a real mushroom that has been extracted and then sprayed dried back into a powder.

Super Nerd Alert Oh, you’re still here? I love people like you. Welcome to the deeper, juiciest part of this article.  Did you know that each species (fruit, tree, vegetable, animal, fungi, etc.) has a Latin name which acts as its sort of universal name. No matter what language you speak or country you're tuning in from, the Latin name stays the same. This is the most authentic botanical or mycological way to refer to a species. Then there are common names, which there can be many of, unlike the Latin name which there is just one of. Example, my full name (equivalent to a Latin name) is Danielle Broida, but people call me (common name, nickname) Dee or Dani. 

Our species in point’s full, Latin name is Hericium erinaceus (puts its hand out to formally introduce itself). One of its common names, like our nicknames, is Lion’s Mane. Latin names always have a first and last name, italicized, with the first letter in the name capitalized and the second name lower case. And what’s cool about the Latin name, is that it often gives us information about potent compounds, where it grows, what it looks like, and more. Hericium erinaceus tells us that this mushroom has two key constituents: hericenones and erinacines. What do these do? Well, they are light enough to cross the blood-brain barrier and can help our brain produce more of the protein, Nerve Growth Factor (NGF).