Cordyceps is gaining popularity among health experts for its potent health benefits. Used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for hundreds of years, Cordyceps is now often found in extract form rather than being hand-collected and dried like in the past.
Two main species of the over 400 species have been the focus of research, showing potential benefits for:
· Oxygen utilization during exercise
· Memory and sex drive improvements
· Anti-aging properties
· Anti-tumor properties
· Type 2 diabetes management
· Heart health
· Inflammation
Choosing the best quality Cordyceps is key for ensuring that the supplement you’re taking provides these key benefits – and more. A high purity Cordyceps extract should be chosen based on:
Understand the Different Between a Powder and Extract
You can choose powder or extract form for your supplement, but there’s a major different in potency. Creating a powder requires grinding either the dried caterpillar or mycelium. Extraction will go a step further by boiling the powder, removing active materials and then removing all of the water.
In the end, an extract should be more potent.
Laboratories can check the cordycepin levels, using HPLC equipment, to verify the potency of the extract. The lower the level of cordycepin, the less potent the extract. An ideal extract will contain 0.43% cordycepin per capsule or more.
Safety Measure Checks
Manufacturers should conduct safety measures on every batch of extract to ensure that no contamination has occurred. The safety checks can look for a lot of impurities, but the most common concerns are:
· Airborne pathogens
· Heavy metals
· Other impurities
Batches, when checked for safety, are checked not per bottle or capsule but for an entire batch of the supplement, which may fill thousands of containers worth of the supplement. These safety checks show a manufacturer’s commitment to producing the best quality Cordyceps possible.
Cultivating, which may or may not be mentioned on the manufacturer’s website, is also an important part of the process. A manufacturer that cultivates in a controlled setting will have stricter procedures and protocols in place.
The controlled setting can eliminate the risk of heavy metals and arsenic being found in the supplement.
Unique Active Ingredients
Cordycepin is the main, unique, active ingredient that needs to be present in any cordyceps supplement that you choose. High purity cordyceps must have high levels of cordycepin to deliver the key benefits that have been verified by researchers.
Additional bioactive compounds found in Cordyceps include polysaccharides and adenosine.
When purchasing a Cordyceps extract, it’s important to keep all of the above points in mind. A high-quality extract is one that offers the same level of benefits that are seen in the studies linked earlier in the article.
Low purity levels will require more capsules to reach the same level of potency per serving than a high purity extract that has been tested in the lab.
Cordythai Cordyceps extract contains 20 servings of high purity Cordyceps per container with a lab certified minimum of 0.43% cordycepin per capsule. Capsules include 350 mg of cordyceps mycelium extract, 30 mg arginine, 10 mg beta glucan and 10m mg of black ginger root extract.
