People have turned to fungi for thousands of years, long before anyone could explain why. Now the research is catching up — mycology, immunology, and traditional use are converging on the same handful of mushrooms, again and again. We pay attention to both: what the forest has always known, and what the evidence is starting to confirm.
Think of your body as a city.
A city runs on defence, infrastructure, communication, and command. Walls keep out invaders. Roads carry supplies. A telecommunications network sends signals instantly across every district. And a chain of command issues orders that ripple outward and get obeyed.
Your body runs the same way. Immune cells patrol like a defence force. The gut lining works like infrastructure, holding everything together. The nervous system acts like telecommunications and electricity. The hormone system works like a chain of command shouting orders from the centre, radiating out to be obeyed by distant tissues
When a city runs well, you don't notice it. But under prolonged stress, poor sleep, illness, or age, coordination between systems starts to fray — defences overreact or fall asleep on the job, roads clog, signals cross or get drowned out.
This is where we think of the compounds in these mushrooms as a kind of forest helper — not doing any one job themselves, but helping every other department do its job better. A beta-glucan doesn't attack anything — it taps a defence cell on the shoulder and says 'stay alert.' A triterpene doesn't build a road — it helps clear the debris blocking one. That nudge back toward normal function is what's meant by homeostasis — balance, not enhancement.
Defence
Infrastructure
Signals
Command
Beta-glucans: the one compound the research keeps coming back to.
Beta-glucans are long-chain sugars in mushroom cell walls, structurally distinct from ordinary food sugars and starches. Immunologists have studied their immune interactions since the 1970s, building on earlier zymosan research from the 1940s–60s — a long-running, established thread.
Immune cells carry receptors built to recognise beta-glucan structures — Dectin-1 and complement receptor 3 (CR3), confirmed across decades of peer-reviewed research as the primary receptors involved. When a macrophage, dendritic cell, neutrophil, or natural killer cell encounters a beta-glucan, that receptor binds and triggers a more active state — increased phagocytosis, cytokine production, coordinated signalling to other immune cells. This isn't a fringe or emerging claim — it's one of the more settled areas of mushroom immunology.
Beta-glucans are water-soluble, not alcohol-soluble — the specific gap the hot water extraction closes.
Three mushrooms. Three different jobs.
Chaga
A topical Chaga extract reduced inflammation and irritation in an eczema study published in 2026 (Liu et al., Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology).
In lab studies, a Chaga extract has also been shown to protect human cells from oxidative DNA damage (Park et al., BioFactors, 2004).
And a compound unique to Chaga — the triterpenoid inotodiol — has shown protective, anti-inflammatory effects on human skin cells under both UV and inflammatory stress, including effects relevant to collagen production and skin ageing (Park et al., International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2023).
Reishi
A systematic review and meta-analysis found Reishi improved sleep quality in people with insomnia (Chu et al., Frontiers in Pharmacology, 2023).
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled human trial, Reishi reduced markers of stress including cortisol (Sheng et al., Journal of Medicinal Food, 2010).
An 84-day randomised controlled trial in healthy adults found Reishi's beta-glucans significantly increased T-lymphocyte populations and natural killer cell counts compared to placebo (Chen et al., Foods, 2023).
In-vitro testing found a Reishi water extract showed broad antimicrobial activity against a range of bacteria and fungi (Shady et al., AMB Express, 2025). Older research found a specific Reishi compound, cyclooctasulfur, inhibits histamine release from mast cells — relevant to allergic response (Tasaka et al., Agents and Actions, 1988).
Reishi may also help support perimenopause, largely because of its established effects on stress and sleep. On hormone regulation more broadly, the picture is genuinely mixed rather than a single clean story: one study found an ethanol extract of Reishi showed estrogen-like activity, binding to human estrogen receptors and increasing cell proliferation in a lab assay (Liu et al., Journal of Wood Science, 2009). A separate study found Reishi extract had the opposite effect in breast cancer cells, actually reducing estrogen receptor expression (Jiang, Slivova & Sliva, International Journal of Oncology, 2006). Reishi clearly interacts with hormone-signalling pathways — but researchers are still mapping out exactly how, and the direction of that interaction may depend on the specific cell context.
Lion's Mane
Lion's Mane produces two distinct groups of compounds depending on which part of the mushroom you're looking at: hericenones, found in the fruiting body — the part we grow and use — and erinacines, found in the mycelium beneath it. Both are genuinely interesting science, but they're not interchangeable, and it's worth being upfront about why our tincture is a hericenone story, not an erinacine one. It's not primarily that extraction is too hard — erinacines require growing the mycelium in liquid fermentation, a genuinely different cultivation process that does need specialist equipment. But the bigger reason is regulatory: in the UK and EU, mycelium-derived Lion's Mane preparations are currently classified as unauthorised Novel Foods and can't legally be sold in food supplements at all, regardless of how they're extracted. Fruiting body extracts are fully permitted. So this isn't us falling short of something — it's a genuinely different part of the mushroom, governed by a genuinely different set of rules, and we're focused on the one that's both legal to sell and the one we actually grow.
A widely-cited review found evidence that Lion's Mane supports peripheral nerve regeneration, largely through its effect on nerve growth factor, or NGF (Wong et al., 2012).
A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial using an extract made specifically from the fruiting body — not the mycelium — found short-term improvements in cognition and mood in healthy adults (Frontiers in Nutrition, 2025).
Lion's Mane has also shown gastroprotective effects in animal studies, using a hot water extract of the kind we produce ourselves. Separately, a study on inflammatory bowel disease found the alcohol-extracted compounds were the most effective of the two extraction types tested — a real-world example of why using both matters.
Some people report Lion's Mane helps with focus, including people managing ADHD — but there's no dedicated clinical trial on Lion's Mane and ADHD specifically. What research exists looks at cognition in general, non-ADHD populations, which is a related but different thing. We think it's more honest to say plainly what people report, and be equally plain about what the evidence does and doesn't yet show.
A small placebo-controlled trial in women in their early forties found four weeks of Lion's Mane improved mood and sleep quality, though it fell just short of significance on menopause-specific symptoms directly (Nagano et al., Biomedical Research, 2010).
Known compound groups
Are beta-glucans the same across all mushrooms? No. Every one shares the same backbone structure, but the degree of branching, molecular weight, and overall shape varies by species. Reishi's beta-glucans form a highly-branched structure — more complex than the simpler, more linear beta-glucans found in mushrooms like oyster or shiitake. More branching generally correlates with stronger immune signalling.
Beta-glucans — the most researched compound group. Immune-priming sugars that work via the Dectin-1 and CR3 receptors. Turkey Tail's beta-glucan-protein complex, PSK, has been an approved prescription cancer therapy in Japan since 1977 — one of the few mushroom compounds to become licensed medicine.
Triterpenes — alcohol-soluble compounds. Reishi's ganoderic acids and Chaga's inotodiol, betulinic acid, and trametenolic acid all belong to this group.
Polyphenols — antioxidant, alcohol-soluble compounds, present broadly across species.
Ergothioneine — an antioxidant amino acid the body can't produce on its own; it has to come from diet.
Ergosterol — a cell-membrane sterol and precursor to vitamin D2, converting to vitamin D2 on UV exposure.
Lectins — proteins that bind to specific sugar structures on cell surfaces without themselves being enzymes. Think of them as a very specific grip, not a breakdown tool. In mushrooms, they're being studied for antitumour and immune-signalling roles.
Glycoproteins — proteins with sugar chains attached, like a protein wearing a carbohydrate coat. PSK, mentioned above, is a concrete example of this compound class.
Melanin and related pigments — particularly dense in Chaga's dark outer layer, linked to its antioxidant profile.
Jolly Moon · South Wonston, Hampshire