Four Weeks of Hericium erinaceus Supplementation Does Not Impact Markers of Metabolic Flexibility or Cognition

Summary & key facts

Researchers gave 24 healthy college-age people either two muffins per day that together contained 10 grams of Lion’s Mane mushroom or identical muffins without the mushroom for four weeks. They tested how the body used fuel during a cycling test and gave short thinking challenges before and after exercise. The group that ate Lion’s Mane showed no clear changes in fuel use or in thinking tests compared with the placebo group. The study says this dose and four-week length did not affect these measures in young adults, but the sample was small and more research is needed to know if different doses or longer use might help.

Key facts:

• Twenty-four healthy college-age adults took part. Half ate muffins with 10 grams of Lion’s Mane mushroom each day and half ate identical muffins without the mushroom for four weeks.
• Researchers measured how the body burned fuels during a graded cycling test and gave two short thinking tests that combined a word-color challenge and mental math before and after exercise.
• There were no clear changes from the mushroom on measures of metabolic flexibility, which means the mushroom did not change how the body switched between burning carbohydrates and fats during exercise in this group.
• There were also no clear changes on the thinking tests after exercise, so the mushroom did not improve the cognitive tasks used in this study for these participants.
• The study was single-blind, which means the participants did not know whether they had the mushroom, and the muffins were checked to taste and look the same.
• The authors note limits: the study had only 24 people, lasted only four weeks, and used one fixed dose of 10 grams per day. They say future studies should test other doses and longer timeframes before concluding whether Lion’s Mane helps humans.
• Previous animal studies showed possible benefits of Lion’s Mane for brain and metabolism, but this human study did not find those effects at the tested dose and duration.

Abstract

> 0.05). Our data suggest that ingesting 10 g of HE per day for 4-weeks had no impact on metabolic flexibility and cognition in a college-age cohort. Due to the limited research on HE supplementation, future research is needed to establish an effective supplement dose and duration for potential physiological changes to be observed in humans.

Topics

Exercise and Physiological Responses Fungal Biology and Applications Muscle metabolism and nutrition

Categories

Health Sciences Medicine Pharmacology

Tags

Alternative medicine Analysis of variance Cardiorespiratory fitness Cognition Cognitive flexibility Cognitive test Computer science Flexibility (engineering) Internal medicine Machine learning Mathematics Medicine Multivariate analysis of variance Neuroscience Pathology Physical therapy Placebo Psychology Statistics Stroop effect

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