Back in November of 2017, Paul Stamets made his initial appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, the biggest podcast in the world. This appearance and the things he discussed would change the culture of mushrooms forever. He shone a bright light on things like Agarikon, an incredible old-growth mushroom that can have many applications for human use, and functional mushrooms which are a small subset of mushroom phenotypes that have been long-used for their unique and only recently understood human benefits.
He returned 2 years later in the fall of 2019 but hasn't returned since.
In the initial part of the newest episode of JRE, Stamets details how the time since his 2019 appearance has been full of development and scientific growth in his field of mycology and specified some of the developments he has made within his own team.
He announced that he now has catalogued the largest array of agarikon mushroom subspecies in the world. This incredible development could prove to enhance our understanding of their benefits for humans and forests. Stamets stated,
"I've put a lot of my resources. I've literally spent millions of dollars collecting strains from the old growth forest and I'm happy to announce that we have more than 107 strains of agarikon isolated from Northern California, even Northern Arizona, British Columbia and in Europe I have now the largest culture library of agarikon in the world."
This catalogue of mushrooms could prove to be invaluable to humanity as these mushrooms could offer a better understanding of how fungi affect our health and how we might be better stewards of old-growth forests, hopefully helping them begin to recover.
He went on to discuss the incredible properties of turkey tail. He detailed a study that showed a connection to turkey tail and improved immunity response after vaccination.
Later, we'll see how using a Turkey Tail liquid extract might help with the gut and oral microbiome.
You've heard about turkey tail and how amazing it is but have you ever thought to try for yourself?
Stamets went on to talk about some of the incredible science behind Lion's Mane mushrooms. He talked about the 6 different primary mechanisms that are studied with Lion's Mane including neurogenesis, NGF, and neuroregeneration.
At mention of lion's mane, Rogan chimed in stating that he takes lions mane every day.
"You have to take vitamins you have to get exercise and you know it seems like mushrooms can help you quite a bit. I'm a big fan of Lion's Mane, I take Lions man every day."
A small amount of lion's mane is included in a supplement line that Joe Rogan sells but he seems to also supplement his lion's mane intake with a liquid extract as well.
Lion's mane is certainly the most popular functional mushroom. Find out why for yourself here.
Rogan asked "I wanted to ask you this like are there better ones to take are there is is a tincture better than capsules is capsules better than tincture?"
Stamets talked about the benefits of using a tincture or liquid extract instead of capsules or powders; "Good questions, the extracts allow you to activate directly through to the mucosa so it gets into your bloodstream but for instance turkey tail, lion's mane and agarikon are very good as prebiotics uh for the the microflora in your stomach. Double blind placebo controlled study (showed) amoxicillin patients where their microbiome in the gut is destroyed because of this potent antibacterial antibiotic and so they found when they gave turkey tail mushroom mycelium and they looked at their microbiome those who took turkey tail end up upregulating beneficial bacteria and down regulating (harmful bacteria)."
One particularly interesting effect that was discussed by the pair is one that has sweeping implications, albeit a very specific and simple study. This is the effect that LIon's Mane seems to have on an individual's ability to quickly tap their first 2 fingers. They refer to the mechanism in this study as the "tap test".
"Those people who were taking the stack" (this "stack" refers to a stack that includes lion's mane, niacin and a microdose), "went from tapping 48 taps in 10 seconds to 68 taps in 10 seconds in one month! Think about that, if you're on a computer, if you're a guitar player, if you're a drummer. Think about walking to the bathroom and not falling... ...this is not subjective, this is an affirmation of an improvement in psychomotor performance."
This shows an improvement in the nervous system in its ability to quickly process multiple types of input at the same time and respond accordingly. We should always take such studies with a grain of salt, that being that we can't verify these results as truth until we have further follow-up. That being the case, such evidence remains interesting and compelling in showing what might be possible when we do manage to have more follow-up science.
Stamets, a somewhat amateur, self-taught expert in the field of mycology, is an amazing mushroom communicator. In fact, you may not know that Paul Stamets was the introductory avenue via which the founders of Vesper Mushrooms, Jake and Hunter came to know about functional mushrooms in the first place! His focus has been on understanding and communicating the amazing benefits of mushrooms, while here at Vesper, our focus is on finding ways to use mushrooms to elevate life. We do this by optimizing the mushrooms and their use through our sustainable extraction process.
