Cordyceps for Health: You gotta love the natural medicine, Cordyceps. It’s not quite an herb, but its fruiting body is a mushroom.

Cordyceps for Health: Creepy Crawly Natural Medicine

Fungus Among Us.

It seems that a very hungry caterpillar (Hepialus armoricanus, or other insects such as an ant) encounters one of many species of “club head” fungi that takes over, grows, and slowly kills its host. Then the insect carcass serves as a nutrient base.

Zombie Ants.

In the case of an ant, the fungus takes control of both the brain and body. It makes the ant climb to the top of a plant and clamps its mandibles, like handcuffs, to a leaf or stim, so it eventually dies. The cordyceps fruiting body erupts from the ant’s brain. From the height advantage, the fungus releases spores on the wind.

Not a far cry from the theme of many sci-fi movies where an alien life form takes over someone’s body. Or murder mysteries, where the inconvenient corpse gets planted in the rose garden propagating botanical society awards.

The fungus grows a stem—a tube-like mycelium called fruiting body—from the insect’s body, continues to grow, and convert the insect into an orangish tube-like mycelium. Now, of course, it’s time to pick it like a mushroom and eat it.

Bon Appétit.

If eating decomposed caterpillar-fungus mycelia and carcass is gross to you, you might ask yourself if modern Medicine’s horse-urine estrogen, chicken-embryo vaccines, or freezing a placenta for later culinary enjoyment is more to your palate’s liking. Must admit, biology is fascinating. So is gastronomy.

The cordyceps fungus is proprietary to insects. To human beings, its polysaccharides, and nutrients are functional medicine.

On the Tibetan and Chinese high mountain glades, this Great Cycle Of Life—caterpillar-parasitic fungus-marvelous medicine–has thrived for millennia and supported many aspects of human health. Historically, it was exclusively reserved for royalty.

Today, because of the massive demand, rather than being wildcrafted to extinction, Cordyceps is farmed in warehouses where they inoculate caterpillars with the fungus. Then, well, Nature takes its beautifully gruesome course.

Cordyceps for Health: Massive Benefits.

What’s so special about this tasty fungus nourished by a caterpillar carcass? Let’s see what science has to say. Cordyceps:

• Improves respiratory health and oxygenation uptake. Important for weekend warriors, asthmatics, and people who breathe.
• It helps prevent certain forms of cancer, demonstrates tumor reduction, and apoptosis (cell death) of rogue cells. Studies show efficacious applications for cancers involving the lungs, colon, and rectum.
• Slows aging processes via powerful antioxidants and epigenetic impact.
• It increases energy, often dramatically.
• Improves the immune system (immunomodulating impact), and helps with leukoplakia (low WBC count). Improves natural killer cells’ activities.
• Serves as Nature’s brilliant source of biochemical compounds that modern medicine tries (unsuccessfully so far) to mimic.
• Protects heart health via anti-inflammatory and anti-muscle spasm properties.
• Supports balanced cholesterol functions lowering excessive LDL and raising HDL.
• Improves skin health with demonstrable impact on wrinkles and age spots.
• It improves low libido, especially in men. Sexual vitality is a primary, historical use for cordyceps. Supports and protects the kidneys to detoxify the blood.
• Help keep the blood viscosity from being too thick and clotted.
• It helps lower excessive blood sugar.
• It improves the gut immune processes.
• Supports and protects the liver.

Holy Caterpillar! A powerhouse of benefits.

Cordyceps for Health: Proven Superstardom.

For thousands of years, Cordyceps is a highly valued, natural medicine in the Tibetan and Chinese traditions—a true superstar. Meanwhile, modern science supports the ancient text’s information and evidence-based applications with hundreds of research studies.

Scientific studies reveal that cordyceps has many bioactive compounds—fatty acids, polysaccharides, polyamines, beta-glucans, sterols, nucleosides (cordycepin), adenosine analogs, and innate vitamins, that are responsible for the wide variety of health enhancements.

Traditional Chinese Medicine herbalists point out that cordyceps-nutrients have bioenergetic properties that epigenetically impart energy and feelings of whole-body wellbeing.

Cordyceps is safe (if you’re a human and not a bug), effective, and a promising therapy or adjunctive therapy as a functional food for health and longevity.

In the grand cycle of life, cordyceps fungus helps maintain the balance of Nature by limiting insect overgrowth. For people, cordyceps provides concentrated, cellular health-supportive nutrients and functional medicines for health and happiness.

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Citations

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