CHAPTER FOUR
The Anti-Aging Mushroom
IN SEPTEMBER 1993, a scandal broke out in the wake of the National Games in Beijing, China. In a single week, three women’s track and field world records were broken. Never had a single track meet produced so many world records. Running the 10,000-meter race on Sunday, September 8, the first day of the meet, Junxia Wang shattered the previous world record by an amazing 42 seconds to finish at 29:31.78 (her record still stands). On Tuesday of that week, the record in the 1,500-meter race was broken by Yunxia Qu, who completed the race in 3:50.46, a full three seconds faster than the previous record (Qu’s record also stands). On Thursday, when qualifying heats, for the 3,000-meter race were held, giddy fans watched as the world record fell twice, first to Linli Zhang, who broke the record in the first heat, and then again to Junxia Wang, who broke her teammate’s newly minted record in the second heat. On Friday, in the 3,000-meter final, the crowd cheered as Junxia Wang broke her own world record by six seconds to finish the race in 8:06.11 (a record that still stands).
Some in the world of track and field cried foul. For so many world records to fall in one place in such a short time, the athletes must have been taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. Surely, when urine tests were completed, the results would show that the women members of the Chinese national track team had been taking anabolic steroids or some other illegal drug.
But the urine tests came up negative. If the athletes had taken drugs, the tests did not show it. When reporters pressed him to say why his athletes ran so well, Coach Ma Zunren mentioned their rigorous training schedule, their passionate commitment to track and field, and a secret elixir made from the Cordyceps sinensis mushroom. (All of Ma’s runners had a falling out with their disciplinarian coach and only one made the team that China sent to the 1994 World Track Championships. Ma claims that his runners’ performances lapsed because they no longer had access to his secret elixir.)
The wonders of Cordyceps sinensis have been known in China for at least a thousand years, where the mushroom is recognized as a national medicinal treasure, a precious and virtually sacred tonic. As a health supplement, it is known to increase energy and vitality. Cordyceps is one of the safest medicinal foods. The mushroom is used to treat liver diseases, cancer, angina pectoris, and cardiac arrhythmia. It is prescribed for bronchial problems, anemia, tuberculosis, jaundice, emphysema, infertility, and sexual dysfunction. In traditional Chinese medicine, Cordyceps is believed to boost the yang and go to the meridians of the lungs and kidneys, where it acts as an invigorator.
The mushroom has a long and storied history in China. The first mention of Cordyceps sinensis appears in 620 C.E. during the Tang Dynasty. The literature describes a strange organism that lives high in the mountains of Tibet and is able to change from animal to plant and back to animal again. That sounds far-fetched, but the ancient literature concerning Cordyceps is not as bizarre as it would seem. Cordyceps sinensis is indeed an unusual mushroom. It germinates in a living organism, the larvae of certain kinds of moths, chiefly the bat moth (Hepialus armoricanus), which it mummifies, colonizes, and eventually kills.
There are over 680 documented varieties of cordyceps mushroom, of which Cordyceps sinensis is but one. Many Cordyceps fungi besides Cordyceps sinensis grow by feeding on insect larvae and sometimes on mature insects.
In appearance, Cordyceps sinensis makes for an unusual sight. The mycelium is encased in the mummified body of the caterpillar from which the fungus germinates. The fruit-body, sprouting from the caterpillar, is capless, shaped like a blade or twig, dark brown at the base, and black at the top. Large fruit-bodies sometimes branch out in the manner of antlers (the reason why Cordyceps is sometimes called the deer fungus). The mushroom is found at altitudes of nine thousand to fourteen thousand feet. It grows in the alpine meadows of the Himalayas and other high mountain ranges of China, Tibet, and Nepal.
The Latin etymology of Cordyceps sinensis is as follows: cord means “club,” ceps means “head,” and sinensis means “China.” The mushroom is also called the “caterpillar fungus” on account of its origin, and, less frequently, the “winter worm, summer plant” because the ancient Chinese believed that the fungus was an animal in winter and a vegetable in summertime. Around 1850, Japanese herbalists began importing the mushroom from China. They named it tochukaso, a Japanese translation of “winter worm, summer plant.” The mushroom is sometimes called the club-head fungus, a direct translation of its Latin name. The common name used in China today is dong chong xia cao, or chong cao for short.
There are actually many varieties of Cordyceps in nature. Cordyceps grow on just about every category of insect—crickets, cockroaches, bees, centipedes, black beetles, and ants, to name a few. Chapter One of this book describes how Cordyceps curculionum attacks the body of ants and rides the ants high into the trees to disperse its spores.
When spring arrives and the snow starts melting in the high mountains, the indigenous people of Tibet and Nepal, as they have done for centuries. take their yak herds to grazing lands at higher elevations. Arriving in the high country, the yaks feed on the fresh spring grass. They paw the ground and remaining snow to expose and eat the Cordyceps mushroom. Then, in a frenzy, they begin rutting. As the story goes, herdsmen who observed the yaks rutting in a fever pitch wondered what gave the animals their vitality. Did they eat some kind of animal aphrodisiac? The herdsmen wondered how the animals managed to conduct themselves so vigorously in spite of the high elevation, and they wondered if what was good for the yak might be good for them.
Upon close examination, the herdsmen discovered that the animals were eating an unusual mushroom, one that grew from the body of dead caterpillars. An intrepid tribesman decided to experiment for himself. He ate a Cordyceps sinensis, found the results satisfactory, and recommended it to his companions. Soon all the tribespeople were eating the mushroom. Their stamina improved and they suffered less from respiratory and other illnesses. The tribes people shared the newly discovered mushroom with monks of their acquaintance, who shared it with other monks, and soon the reputation of Cordyceps sinensis spread throughout China. Eventually, the miracle mushroom landed in the hands of the Emperor’s physicians, who prescribed it to the Emperor. Thereafter, by decree, Cordyceps could be taken only in the Emperor’s palace. All who obtained the mushroom were required by law to turn it over to officers of the Emperor.
Ancient texts describe a couple of unusual ways to take Cordyceps. One recipe called for the mushroom to be soaked in yellow wine to make a tonic for the relief of pain in the groin and knees. Another described preparing Cordyceps in the belly of a male duck. People suffering from cancer or fatigue were instructed to stuff eight and a half grams of a whole Cordyceps mushroom, with the caterpillar casing still attached, into the belly of a newly killed duck, and boil the duck over a slow fire. After the duck had been boiled, the patient was to remove the cordyceps and eat the duck meat for eight to ten days until healthy. Eating duck this way is supposed to have been the medicinal equivalent of taking thirty grams of ginseng (ginseng is probably the most prized medicine in the Chinese pharmacopoeia).
Here is a traditional Chinese recipe for preparing Cordyceps:
12 grams Cordyceps sinensis
1 duck (750 grams)
White wine (a dash)
Scallions (2 tablespoons)
Chicken stock (1 quart)
Ginger (1 tablespoon)
Soak the Cordyceps in lukewarm water until it is soft. Meanwhile, boil the duck thoroughly. Place the duck in a new pot along with the cooking wine, scallions, soup stock, and ginger. Add salt. Seal the pot tightly and steam for three hours. When done, remove the ginger and scallions. Add pepper.
When we brought up the Cordyceps mushroom’s reputation as a “yakrodisiac” to mycologist Malcolm Clark, he suggested that Cordyceps is likely not what makes the yaks rut in springtime. Clark said that probably the yak seeks out Cordyceps sinensis for the same reason that the female pig seeks out the truffle. The animal knows instinctively that eating the mushroom promotes good heath.
“Cordyceps is the yaks’ medicine,” he said, “and they know it. No one has proven that it is an aphrodisiac. The yaks know that Cordyceps has some kind of medicinal effect on their bodies.”
In 1996, Clark was privileged to accompany members of the Mykot tribe as they foraged for Cordyceps sinensis in the Himalayas. Clark is a partner in Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc., a Sebastopol, California, company that supplies specialty mushrooms for the culinary and health food markets. A native of Scotland, he studied biology at university. Since coming to California in 1977, Clark has become one of the premier suppliers of culinary mushrooms to the restaurant trade.
“The Mykots have no written language,” Clark explained, his voice betraying a slight Scottish lilt. “Their history is recorded by song. They immigrated to Nepal long, long ago from Tibet. Like all Nepalese, they keep yaks, but the yaks are herded, not fenced. At a certain time of the year, when the snowmelt comes, the yaks start heading up the hill and there is no way of holding these yaks back. They climb to fourteen, fifteen, sixteen thousand feet to find the Cordyceps. Most of the mushrooms we collected on our trip were collected between twelve and fourteen thousand feet. We had to go over high passes and that was tough. Three steps forward, rest, three more steps, rest.”
To prevent altitude sickness, Clark’s companions urged him to eat the Cordyceps mushroom. “I ate fresh Cordyceps right out of the soil, because the Mykot told me it would help with altitude sickness. I never got sick,” Clark said.
“As the Mykot travel with the yaks, they look for a certain kind of primrose that blooms at high elevation. If the primrose isn’t blooming, the Cordyceps is not going to be out, and you may as well turn around and go back because without the primrose there is no Cordyceps.”
Sure enough, when they came to where the primrose was growing, the yaks ate the grasses, the yaks ate the primrose flowers, the yaks ate the Cordyceps, and the yaks began mating.
Among mycologists, there is a debate as to whether the Cordyceps fungus grows outside the caterpillar or is ingested and grows from the inside. Clark believes that the caterpillars actually ingest the Cordyceps spores. “When dissecting the caterpillars, I found color variation in the tissue always in more or less the same place. That leads me to believe that the spore is ingested. It gets down through the esophagus and into the gut of the caterpillar, where it germinates. You can actually see the spot of inoculation where germination takes place. I always find one spot on the larvae which is softer and a different color, so what I’m proposing is that it’s ingested and it germinates from the inside, where it grows almost like a tuber. It splits the caterpillar’s head and grows out through there. When the ground starts to warm in the spring, the Cordyceps breaks through the ground and the mushroom appears.”
Clark’s idea is that Cordyceps—the fungus itself—is actually composed of three different organisms. “The theory is that the three work together symbiotically. We may be talking about a yeast or another fungus. It’s not been determined what these organisms are. I’m hoping there’ll be a breakthrough as far as separating the active parties in the next couple of years.”
The Mykots make a yogurt out of Cordyceps. They milk the yaks, skim the fat from the milk, and soak dried Cordyceps in the milk overnight. In the morning, the milk turns to yogurt.
“As we know, yogurt is made from lactobacillus, or bacteria; it coagulates the proteins. But lactobacillus is not present in the yogurt that the Mykot make from Cordyceps. Some kind of enzymatic action keeps it from happening. We haven’t found out why; perhaps Cordyceps yogurt presents an opportunity for a new health food product.”
“Most of the collection spots we went to are hundreds of years old,” Clark said about his Cordyceps-gathering expedition. “I accompanied the Mykots on the condition that I would not reveal where they harvest the Cordyceps. These were secret areas. I’m sure they wanted to blindfold me one or two times. It was a wonderful experience.”
For many centuries, Cordyceps has been the herb of choice in China for treating kidney and lung ailments. In traditional Chinese medicine, Cordyceps is said to go directly to the kidneys and lungs, the kidneys being the “root of life,” and the lungs being the “Qi of the entire body.” (Chapter One of this book outlines the central ideas of traditional Chinese medicine.) Cordyceps is considered a potent herb in the pharmacopoeia of traditional Chinese medicine.
Lungs are thought to rule the Qi, which is associated with the element of air. Qi flows without obstruction through the lungs when the lungs are in a healthy state, but if the Qi current is impaired or obstructed by a throat or lung ailment, a defect in nothing less than the body’s life force can result. What’s more, because the throat is looked upon as door to the lungs and the home of the vocal cords, nose and throat disorders are treated by way of the lungs. For that reason, Cordyceps, which goes directly to the lungs and kidneys, is sometimes prescribed for nose and throat disorders.
The kidneys are judged as especially important in traditional Chinese medicine because they store Jing, the prime organic material that is neither yin nor yang and is the source of regeneration in the body. All the organs of the body are completely dependent on the kidneys for their life activity. The natural weakening of Jing over time brings about old age. Erectile dysfunction, sterility, and reproductive problems are brought about when the kidneys do not store Jing properly. Kidneys control the bones and produce bone marrow. Even normal breathing requires the assistance of the kidneys. Because the kidneys are so central to Chinese notions of good health and bodily function, Cordyceps, the herb that goes to the kidneys, is prescribed for many ailments.
The West’s first encounter with Cordyceps occurred in the early eighteenth century when Father Perennin Jean Baptiste du Halde, a Jesuit priest, brought back specimens from China to his native France. During his stay in the Emperor’s court, Father Perennin took a lively interest in Cordyceps. Very likely, his curiosity about the mushroom came about when he was prescribed it during a grave illness. According to his diary, Father Perennin, very ill with a fever, had the good fortune to come upon an emissary to the Great Palace in Beijing who happened to be on an errand to deliver Cordyceps. The man offered Father Perennin the Cordyceps and he soon recovered.
In his diary, Father Perennin wrote that Cordyceps can “strengthen and renovate the powers of the system that have been reduced either by overexertion or long sickness.” He noted how rare Cordyceps was in China, how it had to be imported from the mountainous kingdoms of Tibet, and how it was worth four times its weight in silver.
Upon his return to France, Father Perennin published an account of his experiences with Cordyceps and the beneficial effect it had on his health. His report caused a small sensation in the French scientific community. In his report, a mushroom had been shown to have an association with an insect for the first time. The discovery opened the door to the idea of using microorganisms to control crop pests.
The first indication of the origin of Cordyceps didn’t occur in the West until 1843, when the Reverend Dr. M.J. Berkeley, writing in the New York Journal of Medicine, solved the riddle of the mysterious insect-plant. Berkeley noted that the root of Cordyceps is indeed a caterpillar, but that the caterpillar had been taken over almost entirely by the mushroom’s mycelium.
Cordyceps probably made its debut in the United States in the mid-1800s when Chinese immigrants began arriving to build the railroads. Records show that Chinese physicians were prescribing Cordyceps in Oregon and Idaho. The first to market the mushroom were the Lloyd brothers of Cincinnati, Ohio. The brothers, the leading producers of herbal medicines in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, solicited information about Cordyceps from a botanist in China named N. Gist Gee and used the information in their promotional literature. Gee explained that the mushroom was carried down from the mountains of Tibet by tribespeople who collected it at twelve to fifteen thousand feet. He wrote that Chinese doctors recognized it as “good for protecting the lungs, enriching the kidneys, stopping the flowing or spitting of blood, decomposing phlegm produced from persistent coughing, and curing consumption.”
Beginning in the 1960s, Chinese mycologists undertook extensive research on Cordyceps with an eye toward isolating the most potent strain. Because Cordyceps is rare and difficult to collect in the wild, the mycologists’ goal was locate a superior strain to supply the ever-increasing worldwide demand for the mushroom. In 1972, researchers at the Institute of Materia Medica of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences developed, tested, and finally decided on a strain that they called Cordyceps Cs-4, or simply Cs-4. The strain was chosen because it is closest to wild Cordyceps in the similarity of its chemical components and in its beneficial qualities as an herbal medicine.
Cordyceps Cs-4 was selected from among two hundred other strains of the mushroom. It was isolated from natural Cordyceps found in Qinghai Province, a remote area that was renowned for its Cordyceps for many centuries. Cs-4 meets rigorous standards for safety, grows rapidly using many different cultivation techniques, and resists contamination. More than two thousand patients with various medical disorders were involved in clinical trials of Cs-4 in China. It became the first traditional Chinese medicine to be approved under China’s new and stringent medical standards. In Ig87, China’s Ministry of Public Health approved Cs-4—or jinshuibao, as it is known in China—for use by the general population.
Look for Cordyceps Cs-4 when you are shopping for Cordyceps sinensis products in the health food store. By doing so, you can be sure that you are getting a potent and safe variety of Cordyceps in the formula you buy.
Cordyceps has proven useful against a variety of diseases. The mushroom, which grows under trying conditions at high altitude, seems to impart some of its vitality and strength to the people who take it. Following are recent studies that have been done on the Cordyceps sinensis mushroom.
Cordyceps and Cholesterol
As nearly everyone knows, a diet high in saturated fats can cause high cholesterol levels. Because most people have trouble managing their diets, it is difficult for most people to lower their cholesterol. Often, prescription drugs are needed, but patients can also take health supplements such as Cordyceps to bring down the level of cholesterol in their blood. Cordyceps, combined with rigorous exercise and a well-balanced diet, especially one rich in fish, can be a big help in managing atherosclerosis.
In general, cholesterol refers to the fatty, waxlike material that is produced by the liver, whose job is to perform vital functions such as hormone production and cell renewal. The liver produces most of the cholesterol that the body needs, but some of it is also obtained from animal products. Sometimes you hear the terms “good cholesterol” and “bad cholesterol.” High-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or HDL, is the good cholesterol. It appears that HDL cholesterol transports fats, or lipids, through the body so that they can’t collect. Bad cholesterol, known as low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, or LDL, tends to deposit fats on the blood vessel walls, where it can cause atherosclerosis. What’s more, when LDL is deposited in the liver, it can cause fatty liver tissue.
Atherosclerosis is caused when fatty cholesterol deposits form on the artery walls. The artery walls scar and may grow thick with lesions and abrasions called fibrous plaques. Eventually, the plaques grow so large that they block the flow of blood to vital areas of the body. What’s more, immune cells and muscle cells that normally serve to keep the arteries healthy find their way to the plaques instead. Cell debris also gets stuck in the plaques. Eventually large clumps known as thrombi appear on the cells walls. When they break away and enter the bloodstream, a hole is left in the artery wall that can result in hemorrhaging and sudden death.
It appears that Cordyceps helps prevent atherosclerosis by decreasing the number of platelets that can get caught in the plaques. Cordyceps does this by reducing the viscosity of the blood. In one study, coronary heart disease patients were given three grams of Cordyceps a day for three months. They showed a significant drop in blood viscosity and a twenty-one percent drop in total cholesterol.
Clinical studies have shown that Cordyceps can increase the amount of good HDL cholesterol and reduce the amount of bad LDL cholesterol in subjects of all ages. The largest study conducted on Cordyceps and cholesterol took place in China. In the study 273 patients received one gram of Cordyceps three times a day. Cholesterol levels among the subjects dropped by seveneen percent on average when the eight-week trial was complete.
Chinese physicians have also used Cordyceps to treat hyperlipidemia, a disease caused by high levels of fat in the blood. How Cordyceps acts to treat this disease is not well understood, but it does help people who suffer from high cholesterol. In two placebo-controlled trials conducted in China, patients aged sixty to eighty-four were given Cordyceps to see how the mushroom would affect age-related oxidation of fats in the bloodstream. After subjects took the Cordyceps, doctors discovered that the subjects’ red blood cells had significantly higher levels of an enzyme called superoxide dismutase, or SOD, one of the body’s natural antioxidants. SOD levels in the subjects rose to a level found in seventeen- to twenty-year-olds.
The good news for people who suffer from high cholesterol is that researchers have discovered that lowering cholesterol levels restores the inner lining of the arteries and allows them to relax from the stiffened, plaque-infested state. Apart from administering cholesterol-lowering agents such as niacin and cholestipol, exercise can have a significant effect on cholesterol levels. In one study, twenty-six men with high cholesterol were asked to ride a stationary exercise bike three times a week. The men, all older than forty-six years of age, rode the bike for different amounts of time according to their levels of fitness. Twenty-four weeks into the exercise program, the subjects’ cholesterol levels had dropped by nine percent.
Cordyceps and Diabetes
Diabetes, an autoimmune disorder, is associated with abnormally high blood sugar levels. Autoimmune disorders occur when the immune system incorrectly distinguishes between what does and what doesn’t belong in the body. In the case of diabetes, T cells incorrectly attack the cells of the pancreas that produce insulin, with the result that the body cannot regulate the buildup of sugar in the blood. Cordyceps, by calming and quieting the cells of the immune system, may be able to help against autoimmune disorders such as diabetes. However, research into the treatment of diabetes with Cordyceps is fairly new and much work remains to be done.
The first experiments in treating diabetes with Cordyceps were undertaken in Japan and China in the 1990s when scientists reported significant hypoglycemic, or sugar-lowering, effects from the mushroom. In one clinical study involving forty-two diabetics, twenty received an herbal formula that included mycelium powder from Cordyceps, and the remaining twenty-two received the herbal formula only (the researchers did not say which ingredients were in the formula). The trial ran for thirty days. At the end of that time, the formula-only group showed symptomatic improvements in 54.5 percent of cases; in the Cordyceps-and-formula group, improvement was seen in ninety-five percent of cases (only one diabetic did not improve). Researchers ran tests for proteinuria, the urinary excretion of proteins, at the end of the treatment period. Proteinuria is a general indicator of disease advancement. Its presence in diabetics can mean that the patient develops secondary complications such as kidney disease, liver disease, and heart disease. In the study, researchers found a 16.7 percent increase in the rate of proteinuria in the formula-only group; only half the diabetics in the Cordyceps-and-formula group showed evidence of proteinuria.
Cordyceps appears to lower blood sugar levels, which is good news for patients who suffer from diabetes. However, patients who tend to be hypoglycemic should use the mushroom only after careful consultation with a physician. If you have a tendency to fatigue or anorexia, your blood sugar levels may already be too low. Taking Cordyceps may intensify this problem and cause unwanted health complications.
Cordyceps and Cardiac Arrhythmia
Cardiac arrhythmia is a disturbed or abnormal heartbeat. The most common type of arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, affects more than two million Americans. Fifteen to twenty percent of strokes in the United States are caused by atrial fibrillation. The disease has many causes, including acute intoxication, hyperthyroidism, and rheumatic valvular disease. Medications such as antipsychotic drugs and antidepressants can increase the risk of arrhythmias, as can high doses of nicotine, caffeine, and other stimulants. Some studies show that blood anticoagulants such as aspirin and warfarin may prevent stroke in arrhythmia patients.
In 1994, a clinical trial was undertaken at Guangzhou Medical College in China to see whether Cordyceps can be used to treat ventricular arrhythmia. For the most part, Chinese doctors do not use double-blind placebo-controlled trials, the preferred method of scientific study in the West. In this kind of trial, one group is given a placebo and another group is given a genuine dose of the substance being tested, and results in the two groups are compared. But in the Guangzhou Medical College study, sixty-four subjects were assigned at random to two groups; the test group was given 1,500 milligrams of Cordyceps every day for two weeks, and the other group received a placebo. More than eighty percent of patients who were given Cordyceps improved, whereas only ten percent of patients in the placebo group recovered. The remaining patients showed no change.
In another study at Guangzhou Medical College, patients with arrhythmia took 1,500 milligrams of Cordyceps per day for two weeks. An amazing 74.5 percent of subjects showed improvement. Doctors undertook another trial on thirty-eight elderly patients to see how Cordyceps would affect them. This time, subjects took 3,000 milligrams of Cordyceps per day for three months. Of twenty-four patients suffering from a type of arrhythmia called supraventricular arrhythmia, twenty showed improvement, with their electrocardiograms, or EKGs, demonstrating a partial or complete recovery. The medical status of three patients who suffered from a complete blockage of the right branch of the cardiac nervous system also improved. From this study, researchers concluded that the benefits of Cordyceps increase over time. The longer a patient takes it, the more his or her condition will improve.
Researchers at the Department of Internal Medicine at Hunan Medical University in China undertook a clinical study in 1990 on thirty-seven arrhythmia patients to see if wild Cordyceps could help them. Nineteen patients were cured, six in the first week and thirteen in two to three weeks, while the remaining eleven patients showed no improvement.
Cordyceps and Hepatitis B
About 350 million people worldwide are believed to suffer from hepatitis B. According to the World Health Organization, the number will soon reach 400 million. An estimated one million people die each year from the disease.
Hepatitis B is usually contracted by infected blood and sexual contact. It is the number one cause of liver cancer, chronic hepatitis, and cirrhosis of the liver. A vaccine for hepatitis B is available, but it is too costly for most people who live in Africa, Southeast Asia, and China, where the disease is most prevalent. In those parts of the world, an estimated eight percent of the population will die from hepatitis B; over fifty percent of the population will contract the disease in their lifetime. In the United States, approximately 1.25 million people suffer from chronic hepatitis B.
Even when the immune system is able to destroy infected cells and stop the hepatitis B virus from replicating, certain immune cells called cytotoxic T lymphocytes may act against the virus without destroying infected cells in the liver. In this case, something more is needed to prevent infected cells from becoming cancerous, especially in chronically infected people. The immunostimulant alpha-interferon is the main treatment for hepatitis B, but it is costly and effective only in about thirty percent of cases.
There is evidence that Cordyceps can treat some cases of hepatitis B. In one study, eighty-three subjects aged two to fifteen who carried the hepatitis B virus but showed no symptoms were given Cordyceps for three months. A complete conversion of antibodies to the virus was found in thirty-three of the test subjects, which indicates that the infection had been completely resolved and the virus was no longer contagious. Meanwhile, researchers reported that the number of antibodies positive for the virus had decreased in forty-seven percent of the subjects. Because the subjects were so young and their immune systems were not as developed, the drop in the number of positive antibodies indicates that the benefits of Cordyceps may well have been more significant than the study showed. Researchers believe that the greater a person’s immune response, the less likely he or she is to become a chronic carrier of hepatitis B. Only three to five percent of the adults exposed to hepatitis B become chronic carriers, because their immune systems are developed. Ninety-five percent of infected newborns, by contrast, become chronic carriers. In children under six, about thirty percent become chronic carriers. The drop of forty-seven percent indicated by the study is indeed significant.
In 1990, a study was undertaken in which thirty-two hepatitis B sufferers were given 3,750 milligrams of Cordyceps a day for thirty days. Positive antibodies to the virus changed to negative in twenty-one patients. In twenty-three patients, tests showed that liver function had improved.
Cordyceps and Cirrhosis of the Liver
Cirrhosis of the liver is a degenerative disease that is caused by scar tissue in the liver. People who drink alcohol to excess or suffer from hepatitis are subject to the disease. Sufferers are a hundred times more likely to develop liver cancer. About thirty percent of sufferers eventually succumb to liver cancer or complications as a result of chronic active hepatitis B.
Cordyceps has proved to be beneficial to patients suffering from post-hepatitis cirrhosis. This disease sometimes results when the liver does not heal correctly after a bout of hepatitis.
In 1986, an extract of cultured mycelium was tested in twenty-two patients with post-hepatitis cirrhosis. Patients took six to nine grams of Cordyceps every day for three months, and by the end of the study, their symptoms had improved dramatically. Cirrhotic cells had disappeared in fifteen patients, and had decreased significantly in another six patients.
In a more recent study, Japanese and Chinese researchers found that mice developed a high-energy state in their livers, without signs of toxicity, after consuming large quantities of Cordyceps mycelium. The researchers concluded that one of the main effects of taking Cordyceps on a repeated basis might be a higher metabolic state of the liver. One drug prescribed to treat cirrhosis, called malotilate, helps the liver regenerate by activating the cells of its energy factories. This in turn boosts concentrations of an essential enzyme called ATP. The fact that Cordyceps causes increases in ATP levels may be one way it helps repair the liver.
Cordyceps and Fatigue
Chinese athletes have begun to use Cordyceps as general health supplement to increase vitality and energy and as a post-exercise recovery food. In traditional Chinese medicine, doctors have long used the mushroom to treat cases of excessive tiredness. Cordyceps seems to increase patients’ stamina. For this reason, physicians have recently been looking into whether Cordyceps can aid patients who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome.
Although the disease is a recognized disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome is difficult to diagnose accurately. Its strong psychological component has made it a controversial subject in Western medicine. No single test or biological aspect has yet determined the presence of chronic fatigue syndrome, and the biochemical and biological signs of the disease are sure to be a subject of debate for years to come. Complicating the problem of diagnosis, fatigue can be caused by any number of diseases, including low blood pressure, AIDS, tuberculosis, depression, and/or hepatitis.
By definition, a person is diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome if he or she exhibits these symptoms:
More research needs to be done to determine the effectiveness of Cordyceps in alleviating fatigue. In the meantime, however, people suffering from fatigue who have tried Cordyceps have reported some encouraging results. How does Cordyceps help people who suffer from chronic fatigue? Scientists report that chronic fatigue syndrome sufferers have an unusual form of adrenal insufficiency and, strangely, high levels of male hormones. Because Cordyceps improves the function of the adrenal cortex, it may help people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome. The mushroom also strengthens the resiliency and integrity of the HPA (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal) axis, the neuroendocrine system that responds to stressful events by producing chemical messengers that bring feelings of despair. It appears that Cordyceps calms the HPA axis and thus the nervous system.
In any case, Cordyceps does appear to boost the stamina of people who are not suffering from chronic fatigue. At the annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in 1999, Dr. Christopher Cooper, Professor of Medicine and Physiology at the UCLA School of Medicine, presented a study that showed how Cordyceps sinensis increases exercise performance. In the study, thirty healthy elderly patients underwent a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in which they were tested on a cycle ergometer. Subjects who took Cordyceps increased their oxygen intake from 1.88 to 2.00 liters per minute; those who took the placebo showed no increase in oxygen intake. Dr. Cooper concluded, “These findings support the belief held in China that Cordyceps sinensis has potential for improving exercise capacity and resistance to fatigue. The results complement other studies which have shown increased cellular energy levels through the use of Cordyceps.”