In nature, reishi mushrooms grow wild at the base and stumps of aged trees. Only two or three out of 10,000 such aged trees will have reishi mushroom growth. Thus, they are extremely rare and almost impossible to find wild. For this reason, they were deemed priceless and were only consumed by royalty in China and Japan for thousands of years. Since the early 1970s, Japanese researchers developed a method for cultivating reishi mushrooms on a large scale. Nowadays, red reishi is readily available as they are cultivated commercially in Japan, China, the US and other parts of Asia.
The name reishi is from the Chinese word lingzhi, meaning “herb of spiritual potency” because of its many health benefits and nonexistence side-effects. It has also attained a reputation in the East as the ultimate herbal substance. Only six types of reishi have been studied in detail to explore potential health benefits – red, black, blue, white, yellow and purple. The red and black reishi have demonstrated the most significant health enhancing effects and are, therefore, widely used in the health market today. Yet, red reishi has proven to be the most effective in improving one’s health by enhancing the immune system, many bodily functions, and vital organs.
Researches have identified that water-soluble polysaccharides (complex sugars) are the active ingredients found in red reishi which offers the anti-tumor, immune modulating and blood pressure lowering effects. Other active compounds in reishi are ganoderic acids; studies indicate that ganoderic acids help relief common allergy symptoms and improve both oxygen utilization and liver functions.
As raw reishi mushrooms are hard and not edible, it is difficult for the body to absorb the active ingredients of raw reishi without any extraction. Throughout its history of use in Traditional Chinese Medicine, full-grown reishi are dried, cut into slices and then boiled in hot water to release its nutrients. Japanese manufacturers now use a refined and labor-intensive processing technique to extract the essence of reishi.
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