Plant Medicine Summit Medicinal Mushrooms Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac.

Transcription

1 [0:00:00] Plant Medicine Summit Medicinal Mushrooms Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. Welcome to everyone. This is David Crow. I am the host of The Plant Medicine Summit. And in this segment, we're going to be exploring the fascinating world and subject and very important herbal topic of medicinal mushrooms with a world-renowned expert, Dr. Christopher Hobbs. So Chris, welcome. Thank you, David. Good to be here. So you have quite an impressive bio that gives you a lot of credibility to speak about this emerging new field of herbal medicine. It's actually quite ancient as you and I know but definitely coming into a lot of public awareness now. So let me just take a moment here with your bio. A fourth-generation internationally renowned herbalist, a licensed acupuncturist, an herbal clinician, a research scientist, a consultant to the dietary supplement industry, an expert witness, and that would be for legal cases in the herb history, a botanist and a mycologist, a mushroom expert with over 35 years of experience, and the author of over 20 books. And you lecture on herbal medicine worldwide. Chris has taught at universities and medical schools such as Stanford Medical School, Yale, Bastyr University and National School of Naturopathic medicine. He has taught classes for the last six years at the University of California in Berkeley, as a Ph.D. graduate student in evolutionary biology, phylogenetics, plant chemistry and ethnobotany and is now a lecturer. For those of you who are already curious and want more, his website is christopherhobbs.com. So Chris, again, welcome and we have quite a lot to talk about. It's a big subject. So why don't we just go ahead and open things up here with a little orientation for the people who are listening to this particular segment of the summit, and that is why medicinal mushrooms? What is special about mushrooms as a particular class of herbal medicine? We have aromatic plants that we get essential oils from. We have bitter roots that are full of alkaloids. But what is it specifically about medicinal mushrooms that's important? Well, first of all, just for the big perspective orientation, in Chinese medicine, herbal medicine includes a lot of different substances, active substances including the mineral kingdom and rocks and minerals and even toxic ones like cinnabar which contain mercury. And then moving on to the kingdom fungi, Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 1

2 that's a separate kingdom in the plant kingdom or the protist or bacteria. So then you get the kingdom fungi. In the Chinese Materia Medica which goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, you have about 120, 130 different mushrooms that are mentioned to be used for medicine for a long, long time that have healing properties. And then, of course, there are plants, the plant kingdom. But then you can move on to bryophytes and mosses and lichens. All of those are included in Chinese medicine concept in herbal medicine, even rocks. So that's kind of like the broad perspective of what herbal medicine is. Again, fungi are kind of unique because they're in their own kingdom. They're quite separate from plants and they're actually more closely related to animals than they are to plants. That's why fungal infections are so hard to get rid of and you can take a pill for a toenail fungus but it could actually harm us, harm our kidneys because the toxic products are pretty toxic to us personally as animals. And they're very unique and they have unique compounds. [0:05:12] Probably the overarching idea about the usefulness of mushrooms as medicine is that they really are immune activators. They activate our immune response against pathogens like viruses and bacteria, and even you might consider cancer cells as pathogens, so it activates and alerts our immune system to become more active and to fight any types of infections and even like cancer. They are used for a lot of different things and they have a wide range of activities and usefulness, but I think, overall, this is the bottom line is that they're really useful at activating our immune response. It's extremely important. Yes, please continue. Why do they activate our immune system? Well, there are several phases of fungi. There are the mycelium which are the vegetative part of the life cycle. So they are white threads that invade the substrate like a tree, a dead tree, or even bread on top of your refrigerator. They are molds which are also fungi that penetrate that and start eating it, secreting enzymes to break it down and start eating it. So we really need fungus in our world because they're the big recyclers of our forests and trees and the bread that we don't eat for two weeks at the top of the refrigerator. It starts recycling that and making the carbon and the energy available for other organisms. Our body, over evolutionary time, has had to learn to recognize fungi as potential pathogens because they can recycle us if given half a chance. If our immune system is not active enough, if it's weak, and we're immunocompromised or suppressed, then fungus could actually start. Even Candida could start an infection in our body. These are organisms that are Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 2

3 already present in our environment and probably in our food and in our body, like Candida. They could start growing out of control and actually recycle us. We've had to learn to recognize these really unique, interesting organisms by markers that are on their cell walls. These markers are called beta-glucans. They're very large molecular weight sugar compounds that are branched and very unique to each species of fungi. So we've had to learn to recognize these over evolutionary time. When we ingest a mushroom that has those betaglucans in it, then our immune system detects those and says, "Wait a minute, this is a potential pathogen. We better start gearing up here to protect ourselves." That's the basic idea behind it. That's fascinating. Basically, the body recognizes medicinal mushroom as a pathogen that then increases the immune system. Right, even though mushrooms we're eating like a nice shitake isn't pathogenic in and of itself, our body doesn't know that. It's just saying, "Fungi, this is a potential pathogen." Right. So let's go back to what you mentioned about the Chinese pharmacopeia and the historical references, and let's bring people into a little bit more information here. Let's present some information about some of the species that are commonly used now so we can compare some of the things -- I mean you mentioned that there's over a hundred species that are recorded in the Chinese text, but obviously, that's far more than people are going to find at the health food store. So let's see if we can make this practical and tell people what are the most common species that are easily available and which ones are getting a lot of attention in terms of the research and their benefits. Okay. First of all, I want to say that all mushrooms, all fungi we ingest, whatever species they are, whether it be porcini which is the favorite of Europe, which also grows in North America, or shitake or the button mushroom, any mushroom that we would ingest likely has some immunological activity. However, over time, herbalists and others have picked out ones that are particularly active, and so these are the ones, as you mentioned, that have received the most attention culturally over time as medicines and also recently in the scientific venue of actually scientific research, and also ones that are mostly available in natural food stores. Those include -- I would say the most widely researched mushroom of all, is one that has a strange name, turkey tails which is Trametes versicolor. That's the Latin name. Turkey tail is a common mushroom. It's kind of a bracket mushroom that looks like a turkey tail if you pull the bracket off and it's thin and it's shaped Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 3

4 [0:10:00] kind of like a tail, a turkey's tail, and it's got bands on it. That's why it's called turkey tails. But it's one of the primary recyclers of wood in almost any forest around the world, so they're easy to find in the woods probably near where you live and you can harvest them on your own. There's also a bunch of products out there with turkey tails in them. So that's probably the most researched of all and has the most clinical trials on it. Next would be shitake which many people are familiar with in stir-fries and it's available in many markets. It's the second most widely cultivated mushroom in the world after the button mushroom, just the old agaric that you would find in a salad or the produce department. So those are the two most widely researched and utilized, but there are a host of others too. I'd say there are probably seven or eight others that I can mention. Another one is Cordyceps. Cordyceps is an interesting one because it's a fungi that attacks insects like cicadas, silk worm caterpillars and produce a fruiting body, and that's been revered and used in Chinese culture for probably a couple of thousand of years at least. So Cordyceps is widely known for promoting energy benefits and performance benefits. Next, would be maitake and that one's an edible mushroom that is widely found in grocery stores now. That one benefits the kidneys and also is an immunomodulator. So we have maitake. Another one is chaga. Chaga is an interesting mushroom that's a sterile fruiting body that grows on birch trees often. It grows on the Pacific Northwest. It grows in Eastern Europe, all over the place in Russia. This is a very, very famous one for treating cancer and preventing cancer in Russia and Eastern Europe, and now it's more commonly found here. Another one is lion's mane. That's certainly a well-known one today and lion's mane is known for repairing the nerves and for neural enhancement and cognition and so forth. So that's one a very famous one. Another one is Tremella. Tremella is like wood ear, or it's witches' butter but also related species is wood ear, I think what we call wood ear that looks like a little ear that grows on wood in trees, and that one benefits the lungs and the immune system and it is widely used in Chinese cooking along with the shitake, which is the black mushroom that you find in Chinese cooking. That's actually shitake. So those are some of the most widely used. Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 4

5 I'll also add one more, which is really well-known, and that is reishi. Reishi is hard conk that is highly varnished, red and yellow, beautiful fruiting body that you will find growing on maples and other hardwoods. That one goes back at least 2000 or 3000 years in Chinese tradition and culture as a remedy for the lungs or the nervous system and again for the immune system. So those are, I would say, the ones that are most widely used. [0:15:00] Yeah, that's an excellent list. So I'd like to move into learning about what the research is telling us about how the mushrooms work, which of course will take us into the practical applications or health concerns. But before we open that larger topic, I just have a quick question for you, a personal curiosity of something that I've noticed over the years of studying. That is that the interest in medicinal mushrooms has been extensive in Chinese medicine and in Chinese culture. These plants have been used extensively and are part of the old pharmacopeia. But you find practically nothing about medicinal mushrooms in Ayurveda, in the traditional medicine from India. Do you have the personal insights into why that is? Well, that's quite interesting, isn't it? I would say that some fungi are likely used in -- if you really get the Ayurveda texts and the complete materia medicas that contain hundreds of different types of herbs, you can probably find the odd mushroom in there. But you're right. It hasn't been nearly as revered as it has been in China. Why would that be? I mean you can think about the climate and the culture in India and Tibet. I mean there are a lot of mushrooms that grow there. Reishi grows there, wild, but not as much in the tropics, like down in the southern tropics. There aren't any of the main species that we would use. Those were mostly from temperate climates, interestingly. I don't think there is any actual research on this, but is it that mushrooms that grow on a temperate environment tend to produce more of the active compounds than mushrooms that grow in tropical climates? It's also the fact that when I went to the Amazon a couple of times and we worked with a shaman there I asked him, "Well, do you use any mushrooms in your practice?" and he said, "No, we don't use any. In fact, they're considered nonuseful. We eat one mushroom maybe, but none really are used for medicine." So that's another example of a tropical climate where not many are used. Interesting. Well, let's move into the larger subject about what the modern research is telling us about the effects of the mushrooms and link that back to the traditional historical use and put it all in the context of what are mushrooms good for. What is modern science telling us that they are beneficial for and how does that correlate with what the own pharmacopeia tell us and how can we use this on a practical basis? Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 5

6 Well, yeah, that's quite a long train of thought there, but first of all, what does the science tell us? We know that mushrooms have been used for a long -- maybe 2000 to 3000 years have been used in human cultures and traditions as medicines and as healing agents, but what does modern science say about all this? Has it been substantiated by modern science? And I would say definitely it has very strongly been substantiated by a lot of in vitro tests; in other words, they take mushroom extracts and test them against cancer cells or maybe viruses or whatever; and also in vivo tests where they use animal testing like rats or mice. So there are many, many studies on maybe I would say up to 30 to 40 different species of mushrooms. There are many studies. There's a huge body of scientific evidence in published peer-reviewed journals. When you get to the clinical trials, which is what we really like to see for efficacy, there are quite a few clinical trials as well. Almost all the clinical trials have been performed in Japan where mushrooms and mushroom medicine really got its modern start, I'd say, somewhat in China and somewhat in Russia, but those journal articles have not been very widely available typically in Chinese or Russian up until recently. So Japan has just been more on the forefront in Asia of doing clinical trials on herbal medicine in general, including mushrooms, and they've just been crazy about medicinal mushrooms. So they've widely promoted it. I would say that almost all the really good clinical trials have been performed in Japan. They have good instrumentation. They have good methodology. So these clinical trials that have been performed in the last 20 years, really, they're not all of the highest quality, but there are many good ones to point to. I would say the bottom line is that some of the clinical trials show that if a group of people that have cancer, different types of cancer -- gastric cancer is very common in Japan, GI cancers, colon cancer. Those are very common, so there are a number of studies on GI cancers. So people that have GI cancers that are taking chemotherapy versus people who are taking chemotherapy plus the mushroom extracts like turkey tail or shitake or some of the other ones, how is the survival rate longer if you're getting the mushrooms with the chemo than if you get chemo alone. Unfortunately, there are no studies, and just in case you're wondering, which is basically placebo versus mushrooms, do people do better. So that's considered unethical, so they have to give it with the chemotherapy. So what they want to find out is that people taking the medicinal mushroom extracts with the chemo, is their immune status better? Can we measure that? Is their long-term survival better? We can certainly measure that. These are the two outcomes that have been widely examined with mushroom extracts, and I can say that the best studies, the most positive studies show that people taking chemo that have intestinal cancers of various kinds, the five-year survival rate is up to one-third higher with the mushroom extracts versus no mushroom extracts, only chemo. Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 6

7 [0:20:02] That's incredibly significant because mushrooms have very low profile of toxicity. Modern science has not been able to demonstrate any problematic toxicity with long-term mushroom use. Also, they're very inexpensive. You can grow mushroom mycelium and harvest them or grow the fruiting bodies fairly inexpensively and produce products. So the cost profile is good, it doesn't pollute the environment, there are not a lot of synthetics that you have to deal with, and the efficacy has been demonstrated in clinical trials. There's one more aspect that I have to mention, and that is mushrooms also have an amazing nutritional profile. They are loaded with protein, high-quality protein, trace minerals like copper and zinc. They're loaded with calcium and other macro-minerals. They also have other nutritional benefits, like they're very, very high in fiber, both soluble and insoluble fiber, and we all need more fiber. That's a given because if we eat any process food that's cutting down on the fiber, which we need for proper immune function and digestive function. So they have so many benefits. They're fairly nontoxic if not completely nontoxic except to people that are immunocompromised. They're fairly cost-effective and there's a wide range to choose from for different ailments. And again, the science is very strong on supporting a lot of these uses. Yeah, that's very important. Now, you have pointed to one very specific condition which is people who are on chemotherapy for GI cancers. Personally, I know that medicinal mushrooms are widely applicable for a lot of health concerns. So could you give us a broad outline of other conditions that people would get benefit from taking these? Okay, well, first and foremost, as I mentioned before, modern life and modern diets and stress and so forth could lead very easily to a compromised immune response. So it's very important to take a supplement like medicinal mushrooms on a regular basis especially during the winter when we might have a cold or flu or be likely to get any of the respiratory tract infection. I would say that's one of the most important broad actions and useful areas of medicinal mushrooms is that it's easy to have our immune system become weaken from diet, we're not getting all the nutrients we need; sugar itself is an immunosuppressant, stress is an immunosuppressant. Not getting enough sleep is definitely an immunosuppressant. There's a lot of modern research that shows if we don't get eight hours a night or seven to eight hours a night that this can affect our immune system and our immune response fairly strongly. So mushrooms as a daily supplement can help counteract that immune stress and the underachieving potential of our immune system from all of these environmental and stress factors. So I'd say that's one of the most important Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 7

8 things. Moving on to just up the respiratory tract infections in general, during the winter months, I'd always taken a medicinal mushroom extract that I typically make myself, but there are a lot of good products out there. I use it daily, because instead of getting a vaccine, which I haven't had a vaccine yet, I tend to choose mushrooms as my natural kind of vaccine. In fact, some study shows that reishi for one can help actually stimulate bone marrow production of further immune cells, so macrophages and T-cells and B-cells that can actually stimulate the bone marrow to produce more active immune cells. This is kind of like my own personal natural vaccine for preventing colds and flus in the winter, and I think it really makes a lot of sense for daily use. [0:25:07] Now, broadening it out, reishi is really well-known for chronic respiratory tract conditions like chronic allergies, chronic asthma, allergic rhinitis, these types of things. Reishi, in my clinical practice, I really saw a lot of benefits for people who had chronic respiratory tract ailments. Another one for reishi is chronic nervous system problems like reactions to stress such as insomnia and nervousness and anxiety. Reishi is very, very good on a regular basis for helping to counteract chronic nervous system problems like insomnia, chronic insomnia or anxiety or other problems. So broadening it out even more, some mushrooms are really good for modulating and regulating cholesterol like the famous oyster mushroom. Eating oyster mushrooms on a regular basis, you're going to get fabulous nutrition. It's about 25% high-quality protein, again trace minerals, and it also contains a substance that's kind of like lovastatin, that's a very closely related molecule to lovastatin which can help regulate the blood cholesterol. And then considering the fiber in mushrooms which also helps with constipation but also helps prevent uptake of some lipids, so that's just another pathway it can help normalize cholesterol and blood lipid levels. And then nerve growth factors, in lion's mane there's kind of nerve growth factors that have been found to help rebuild the nervous system after nerve injury, neuropathies and even cognitive problems. And then add to that Cordyceps which is also good for mental performance, physical performance and endurance, and that's a very famous mushroom for promoting endurance and sports performance and even sexual performance according to the ancients. I don't know if there are too many clinical trials on that, but that was well-known by the ancients. At one time, Cordyceps was only available for the royalty and the court because it was so rare. But nowadays, we can cultivate it, so it's a bit more widely available. So that's kind of a range of things that it's useful for, obviously, immune system, preventing viral infections, colds and flus. That's very, very important, but Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 8

9 there're very specific uses for reishi and for Cordyceps and for a few other species as well. Cool. Excellent information. Thank you. And as we continue here, I know that a lot of people are going to start thinking about the amount of information that you have provided here. I just want to make a quick mention that you can get the upgrade to this telesummit and you can find it at the web address of plantmedicinesummit.com/upgrade. Okay so you've mentioned something that caught my attention as a question and I think that probably other listeners might have this question come up in their mind also. That was when you were talking about the use of the mushrooms during chemotherapy, you said that they are virtually nontoxic except for immune-compromised patients. But then as you were describing the list of the functions and the benefits of the mushrooms, a lot of those things are actually weakened immune system problems. So I'm wondering if you can clarify that a little bit. Is there actually toxicity for immune-compromised patients? At what level do they have to take these mushrooms for there to be a problem? And how does that reconcile with the fact that they're actually immunestrengthening? [0:30:07] Well, maybe toxicity wasn't the right word. Mushrooms could be problematic, have side effects if you're really immunocompromised, I mean strongly immunocompromised. Some people could be allergic to them, so I would say allergies could be one of the most frequent side effects of taking mushrooms. In my clinical experience and background that I have, I haven't seen too many people have allergic reactions to mushroom products, but I would say that that is possible if you are immunocompromised and you're sensitive to the point where you react to a lot of things, for instance, molds. If you react to molds, if you have allergic reactions to molds, if you just have food allergies or respiratory allergies in general, then yes, it is possible to react to some mushrooms. I have seen it happen, but it's rare. I kind of withdraw the word toxic and just say side effects, the side effects to mushrooms. The most common or possible ones are just individual sensitivities and reactions. That's why I always have people start with a low dose, maybe two capsules twice a day, one capsule twice a day. Especially if you're just on the sensitive side and you do have food allergies or you know that you're sensitive to molds, then I would start with a lower dose and work your way up. Or you could switch mushrooms. That's the beauty that there are a number of mushrooms that you can take. And I have seen people be sensitive to reishi whereas they were not at all sensitive to shitake. So this is possible but not too common in my experience, but people especially that are sensitive to molds and yeasts and Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 9

10 environmental pollutants even, they just have a very sensitive immune system, then they have to start out low and just pay attention to that. The actual toxicity is not a problem. There are very few toxic compounds in mushrooms. That's my point. There are some toxic mushrooms out there, like if you go out in the environment and pick wild mushrooms to eat for the table, yes, some mushrooms have lethal compounds in them like the famous death cap. But the species that we use are absolutely nontoxic in that sense. They have no toxins that we can identify. That's probably why they've been used for so many thousand years. Well, thank you for that clarification. I know a closely related question that some people might be thinking is what about the situation where they've taken a lot of antibiotics and there's a Candida problem. Because Candida in a certain way is sort of a more closely related organism, but do you think that medicinal mushrooms for dysbiosis and overgrowth of Candida is a good approach or should it be something that comes in later after rebuilding the digestive flora? Well, no. Again, I get that question. That's probably the most common question that I get in classes is what about Candida, people with Candida or they're very sensitive to yeast and so forth and mold. Yes, start it out slow again. But over the years I've seen very few people with Candida actually cross-react to mushrooms. It's the same kingdom, but it's different enough from Basidiomycetes and the higher fungi, so-called that I haven't seen too many cross-reactions or problems where people if they react or they feel like they have a Candida overgrowth would have to really worry about taking medicinal mushrooms. In fact, I've seen it help. I've seen them take a shitake extract and they have Candida problems and it actually benefited them. Their problems were lessened. Their symptoms were lessened by taking the supplement. That's a very common question, but I really don't feel it's a huge problem. But, again, if people are very sensitive, then you just start out slowly and you could switch species and try a different species if you feel like you're sensitive to one. But, again, this is like 5% of maybe all the cases that I've worked -- people that I've worked with or less that actually see problematic reactions from taking mushroom supplements. I mean it's the same thing as eating them. I eat about 50 species of wild mushrooms and have for years, and I love hunting wild mushrooms to eat for the table. And over the years I have seen people react to mushrooms that no one else has reacted to. Wild mushrooms like the porcini, I rarely see anybody react to that one, but I have seen one or two people over the years feel nauseous after eating it and just not feel good after eating it. So that's an individual allergic reaction, and yeah, they are possible. Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 10

11 [0:35:02] Okay, that's good to keep in mind. So in the last few minutes of our call, why don't we unpack several large subjects as quickly as we can? Because I know that there's so much more to discuss here. Well, certainly, the dose is really important and how to take them. That would be really important. Right. Let's talk about the things that people are going to find in the shelf. Let's talk about the difference between the fruiting body and the mycelium. I know that that is something that if you read the product ingredients, you're going to see mycelium. That may raise questions for people. What is the difference? Let's talk about how people can extract some cells and dosages and so on. Yeah. All those are important, the practical side of actually using them. I mean one thing to keep in mind is the fungi lifecycle consists of mycelium, which are the white threads going to the environment or wood or whatever the substrate is and produce enzymes to digest the substrate. Then there is the fruiting body. Eventually, when the conditions are right, say there's enough moisture or the carbon dioxide levels change in the atmosphere, then the mycelium will mass up and it will start changing to produce a fruiting body, and the fruiting body is the mushroom that we think of as like we go into the store and you buy a button mushroom, that's a fruiting body, the fruit body, and that's the mushroom. So you'll find both in products and you'll find the mycelium is just a white vegetative body that's growing on grain typically. They cook grain, they sterilize it, they inoculate it with the mycelium and it starts growing and digesting the substrate, namely the grain. Then they harvest it and dry it or extract it and put it into a product. On the other hand, the fruiting body is eventually formed and then you can cut that up and extract that and produce products from the fruiting body. So what's the difference? There is some indication that products that are out there on the market based on only mycelium just grown on grain, that not all the grain may be digested. This is a big controversy, and now there's lots of research going on in this area. But it could be that fruiting body extracts overall have more of the active beta-glucans in them than mycelium products. But I will say too that this is still under discussion and it hasn't been completely resolved yet. However, there are some strong lab results and research to indicate that maybe the fruiting bodies are stronger than the mycelium but the mycelium products are also quite good and if they're well-made should provide a full range of benefits. Making it at home, it's very easy to make mushroom extracts at home, and it's just simply get the mushrooms. For example, shitake is one of the easiest. What I have people do, is simply blend up the mushroom fruiting bodies, cut the stems Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 11

12 up, put the caps in the blender with some water, blend them up until you get a slurry like a smoothie, and then you simply put that into a saucepan and simmer that for about ten minutes, not boil but to simmer it, and that will break down some of the cell walls and render it more digestible. And then you can add vitamin C, about one teaspoon per pint, and store it in the refrigerator and then take about a half teaspoon to a teaspoon once or twice per day, and that is a very potent dose of medicinal mushrooms for immunological and other benefits. So you can make your own very easily at home. You can also add a flavored tea or some essential oil if you want to flavor or some syrup with orange oil in it to make it more palatable if you want anything like that. So just feel free and play with it and have fun making your own preparations. [0:40:07] If you want to dry the mushroom slurry, you can do it just like I said. If you're considering shitake, make it a smoothie. And then what you do is you just pour that into the fruit leather trays of a food dehydrator and dehydrate it on about 98 degrees Fahrenheit so you don't get it too hot. It might take several hours, it might take overnight until you get a kind of dry wafer, and then you crumble that up in your blender and then powder it. That's as simple as that and then you have a tea powder, a kind of like a shitake tea powder. And then you can cap that up. There are many cappers that you can buy and you use double latte cap caps. Each double latte cap contains about a half a gram. So two caps of the mushroom powder, the tea powder is going to be about one gram. So if you take two caps morning and evening -- and this is about a five to one extract. In other words, that means that one part of the finished powdered extract is equivalent to five parts of the original mushroom because you've gotten rid of all the water. So you've got this concentrated extract and that means that if you take two in the morning, two double latte caps in the morning, two in the evening, you got two grams of mushroom extracts times five. That's ten grams a day, and that's the traditional dose of shitake were many of these traditional mushrooms is about6 to 12 grams per day. So you're really good. You're right there in the dose range that will provide benefit. Now, I would call that a maintenance dose. So if you want a stronger therapeutic dose then you want to double that or even triple that. You would take three or four or even five caps twice a day. That's perfectly fine. Again, work your up from a lower dose to make sure you're not sensitive to that particular species. But that will provide much stronger benefits. That definitely is dose-dependent. So the more you take up to a point you're going to get stronger effects. And again, I talked about how to make an extract with shitake, but you can also use turkey tails, you can harvest your own from the woods, make sure to identify them correctly, or other species like maitake or Cordyceps or reishi. You can buy the fruiting bodies online and you can grind them up, powder them and make your Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 12

13 own powdered extract right at home. That's, of course, the most cost-effective way of getting the most potent extracts for your family and for your own health. Right. Excellent. Okay. Unfortunately, our time is running out and so just one last question for you and that is if you had any last thoughts or ideas or concepts, information that you would like to leave with our listeners about this vast subject, because obviously, we could talk for hours. It has been very enjoyable discussing this with you, but there's so much to talk about. So if you have any final comments, please let us know. Well, obviously, I'm keen on medicinal mushrooms or just mushrooms in general. I think they offer just a tremendous value for the average person or a practitioner if there are practitioners listening out there. These offer an incredible value for your patients or your clients and for your own personal health as well because they're just packed with nutrition, valuable protein. They have all kinds of small molecular active compounds that are maybe antibacterial and so forth. But such strong immunomodulators and such a strong protective effect that you can get from their daily use, amping up all kinds of aspects of your immune response -- macrophages, T-cells, B-cells, cytokine production increases. So you're just getting a real benefit immunologically and for protecting yourself against all kinds of infections. I think based on making your own is really a great thing to do. You can grow a shitake, you can grow oyster mushroom. You can get kits and grow them right in your kitchen and get the benefits. Again, all species, they have benefits. Likely the most digestible of all species is the oyster mushroom. You get your protein and trace mineral. So there's just a lot of benefit with very little risk and the cost, and just enjoying getting to know fungi in general is just wonderful. Excellent. Thank you so much for those closing words. And for those of you who would like to learn more about Dr. Christopher Hobbs, he is easy to find. His website is christopherhobbs.com. And for those of you who would like purchase the upgrade package, the website address for that again is plantmedicinessummit.com/upgrade. So, Christopher, thank you so much for your time, on behalf of all of the listeners. This has been very rewarding and educational. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Oh, my pleasure, David. And just to all the listeners out there, thanks for tuning in today, and I hope you would get out and try some of those mushrooms. Okay. So thank you again to everybody on the call and meet you on the next session. Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 13

14 [0:44:52] End of Audio 2016 The Shift Network. All rights reserved. Christopher Hobbs, Ph.D., L.Ac. March 15, 2016 p. 14