Mycelium is an underground network that expands and feeds off of organic plant matter. This phase of the basidiomycetes’ life cycle is the vegetative stage.

Medicinal Mushroom Benefits: Mycelium vs Fruiting Body

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To Benefit from a Medicinal Mushroom, You Need to Know What You’re Getting

Not all fungi products are equal. Mushroom extracts and supplements generally contain EITHER the fruiting body OR the mycelium of the mushroom. You should know what you’re getting when you purchase supplements if you actually want to benefit from the bio-compounds in mushrooms. And with so many products on the market making claims about ingredients and efficacy, it can be challenging to understand what will truly support your health.

Read on to learn the myths and facts about medicinal mushroom supplements to get the most functional health support from fungi. The bottom line is that both the scientific research and respected practitioners in the field confirm that the medicinal value of mushroom extracts is dependent on the fruiting body being used, rather than the mycelium.

Listen below to master clinical herbalist, Dr. Terry Willard, as he summarizes the issue:

Fruiting Body, Mycelium, & Marketing Hype

The way many supplement brands market and sell their fungi products is cause for concern. If consumers don’t know what to look for when buying a medicinal mushroom supplement, they may easily be misled by the packaging, naming, and labeling of the vast products available.

It can be difficult to distinguish a real mushroom extract made of the mushroom (fruiting body) from one made of the mushroom’s “root” structure, mycelium. Reading a supplement’s packaging and nutritional labels won’t necessarily tell you the whole story either.

Mushroom product labeling requirements from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tell manufacturers to clearly distinguish whether the product contains actual mushroom (the fruiting body) or just the mycelium in any food or supplement product. But not everyone follows these rules and this is low on the FDA’s enforcement priorities.

In 2017, The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) released labelling guidance for Fungi Dietary Ingredients. This is not enforceable but gives recommendations on how Fungal based products should be accurately labelled to clearly inform the consumer on what is in the product.

Too often, brands disguise the true nature of their products and misdirect consumers who want to buy effective medicinal mushroom products. Here we will separate the myths from the facts about mushroom terminology, their active compounds, and the marketing hype, to give you the information you need to buy a supplement with the most medicinal mushroom benefits.

To reap these benefits, you need a supplement with high concentrations of the parts of the fungi that offer the most therapeutic compounds. This article gives you the knowledge you need to make informed purchasing decisions, so you can truly experience the adaptive health benefits of medicinal mushroom supplementation.

A mushroom is the “fruiting body” of a fungal organism called a basidiomycete (except in the case of the cordyceps mushroom — they are an organism called an ascomycete). Basidiomycetes have three distinct parts that develop throughout its lifecycle: spore, mycelium, and mushroom.

The spores are in the surrounding air all around us, and under favorable conditions, these will germinate and begin to grow branching filaments called hyphae. As the hyphae continue to grow, they will fuse together to form mycelium.

Mycelium is an underground network that expands and feeds off of organic plant matter. This phase of the basidiomycetes’ life cycle is the vegetative stage. During this time, the mycelium produces enzymes that break down the plant material in its growth radius and recycles it into beneficial compounds that return to the soil.

In nature, this typically means that mycelium will form large networks of fungal matter by breaking down wood, logs, leaves, and other plant matter. The plant matter on which fungi feed is commonly referred to as the substrate. The mycelium becomes entwined in whatever substrate it’s in, making an inseparable mass of substrate and mycelium.

If environmental conditions are right, the mycelium will produce a mushroom, a.k.a. the fruiting body. The mushroom is actually the reproductive structure of this organism. When fully mature, it produces spores that, when distributed across plant matter, will allow for the creation of new mycelial networks, and ultimately the spread of the fungus.

Mycelial networks can live for hundreds, if not thousands of years and spread across vast distances. In fact, the largest organism on earth is a mycelial mat of a honey mushroom in eastern Oregon that is 890 hectares in size and over 2,000 years old!

It is important to reiterate that just as a mushroom is not mycelium, mycelium is also not a mushroom. These terms are not synonymous and should be accurately differentiated.

Read the ingredients on the mushroom or mycelium supplement package to see which part of these fungi the producer used. Based on the labelling, many times it is unclear. The product could be any combination of mycelium, mushroom, sclerotium, spore, and substrate matter, dried, ground into a powder and then potentially extracted.

Using all the parts of the fungi might seem like an effective way to reap the most benefits. However, there are parts of the basidiomycete, like the mushroom (fruiting body), that contain more active beneficial compounds than others. The mycelium, on the other hand, when grown on a solid substrate will also contains compounds of whatever substrate material it has been grown on.

How to Choose an Effective Mushroom Extract

By understanding the difference between mushrooms and mycelium, you can cut through the noise and make an informed product choice. To know what you are getting and reap full benefits from these fungal wonders, shop with these guidelines in mind:

Read the product’s Supplement Facts panel and attempt to distinguish the true contents of the product.

Select products that primarily contain the mushroom (fruiting body), not just mycelium, myceliated grain, or myceliated biomass.

Avoid buying products that lack specific information about the plant part of the fungi (whether mushroom or mycelium).

Look for an extract as extraction breaks down the fungal cell wall and improves bioavailability.

Look for brands that list the beta-glucans content in their Supplement Facts panel. It’s important for it to be in the Supplement Facts panel and not just in any marketing materials.

Ignore any polysaccharide numbers because polysaccharides also measure starches.

Make sure the ingredients are organically grown.

Always choose to buy from a trusted source.

Real Mushrooms’ commitment is to provide you with the very best quality and greatest possible potency of mushroom supplements. Read our story and 

 to try our line of 100% real mushroom extracts that deliver all the health benefits of a real medicinal mushroom.

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