What’s Really in Your Lion’s Mane? A Look at Mycelium vs. Fruiting Body

Reid Parr | WBN News – Vancouver | June 19, 2025 Subscription to WBN and being a Contributor is FREE

What’s Really in Your Lion’s Mane? A Look at Mycelium vs. Fruiting Body

When it comes to Lion’s Mane, the marketplace can feel like a maze—mycelium vs. fruiting body, water vs. alcohol extracts, and concentration ratios like 1:1 and 8:1. Each choice carries different benefits, and understanding those distinctions is key to maximizing this remarkable mushroom’s healing potential.

Let’s start with the basics: mycelium and fruiting body.

Mycelium is the underground, root-like network of the mushroom. Technically called “hypogeous,” this is where the mushroom’s life begins, spreading through the substrate (like grain or wood) and absorbing nutrients. In commercial cultivation, mycelium is grown on a substrate that is often included in the final product, which can dilute the concentration of active compounds.

The fruiting body, on the other hand, is the visible mushroom that appears above ground—the part traditionally used in medicine. Known as “epigeous,” it contains the spores and has a thick, resilient cellular structure, requiring extraction methods to make its nutrients bioavailable.

So what does this mean for you?

The fruiting body typically offers a higher concentration of bioactive compounds, especially the fat-soluble ones that are key for brain and nerve health. This is partly because mycelium-based products often carry residual substrate as a filler and typically undergo only water extraction, limiting the range of compounds they deliver.

Bottom line: both parts of the mushroom have value, but if you’re seeking the strongest possible effects—particularly for cognition and nerve regeneration—fruiting body extracts provide a more potent option.

Reid Parr | WBN News – Vancouver Subscription to WBN and being a Contributor is FREE

Karalee Greer - Publisher

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