Chaga Mushroom Extract
Chaga mushrooms grow in the forests of Siberia, Canada, Northern Japan and the Northeastern United States. Chaga is highly prized in Russian and East European herbal practices, with the modern clinical research validating many of the health benefits described in those herbal sources.
Chaga is unique among medicinal mushrooms: Like all medicinal mushrooms, Chaga contains the beta glucan rich polysaccharides that give medicinal mushroom extracts their potent immune supporting properties. However, Chaga also contains other active compounds, primarily betulinic acid and polyphenols, which can give Chaga extracts powerful antioxidant properties*.
Chaga has a high ORAC score (measurement of antioxidant properties), similar to that of blueberry extracts.
Chaga is a mushroom that must be wild-crafted (picked in the wild and not cultivated.) Only those mushrooms harvested from living birch trees will contain all the active compounds Chaga is famous for. The mushroom fruit body absorbs betulin from the birch bark, converting it to betulinic acid.
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