Turkey Tail Mushroom Extract

Biohacker Review: Tis' the season for a stronger Biohacker beverage!

In this review, I'll tell you about my subjective experience with Turkey Tail and break down the recent science that has been done on this mushroom of mythological repute.

“HPV can’t be cured”

Your doctor, Google, the CDC, the NHS, and Planned Parenthood will tell you "there's no cure for HPV" - you're screwed for life, you dirty slut, you! But, good news, some high-quality evidence from recent scientific trials suggests that putting an embarrassing case of HPV or even a (potentially life-threatening) case of cervical cancer behind you might not take invasive surgery, antiviral drugs, or lifelong medical treatment from the pharmaceutical-hospital industrial complex.

A 2021 Roman study (a study conducted in Rome - that makes it Roman, right?) of 183 Italian women with HPV, found that Turkey Tail in vaginal gel "cured" nearly 70% of the HPV cases after 6 months of regular treatment.

At multivariate analyses adjusted for age, smoking habit, and use of estroprogestinic pill, compared to controls, women treated with the gel showed a significantly higher likelihood to experience the clearence of HPV DNA... at 6 months.

And it concluded 

The use of a Coriolus versicolor-based vaginal gel in high-risk HPV patients is safe and effective based on all examined tests.

More great news for those who test positive for HPV, a recent Spanish study involving 91 HPV-positive women found that 6 months of using a similar vaginal gel...

demonstrated a better clinical benefit than the conventional watchful waiting approach in clinical practice for total and high-risk HPV patients in terms of its efficacy to treat HPV-related cervical lesions and to clear all HPV strains.

A follow-up with this study mentions that the treatment also demonstrated significant efficacy in repairing low-degree HPV-related cervical lesions.

It's renowned as a natural antiviral treatment for HPV, in a French trial 88% of patients managed to clear oral HPV after using it for just two months alongside Reishi mushroom.

Red Reishi

Category: Nootropic Ingredients

 I learned a few things from a 2023 Slovakian review drawing a connection between HPV and cancer.

• Apparently, It is estimated that 14–16% of global cancer cases are caused by infectious events or infectious agents.
• Like human papillomavirus (HPV), which is one of the worst offenders, playing a role in vaginal, vulvar, penile, anal, rectal, and oropharyngeal carcinogenesis.
• Medicinal mushrooms have been used since time immemorial, in fact, 5300 years ago, Ice Man used amadou mushrooms... to survive in the inhospitable conditions of the Italian Alps.

From the abstract of the review...

Coriolus versicolor extract itself, and also its combination with another medicinal mushroom, Ganoderma lucidum, leads to improved HPV clearance in HPV cervical or oral-positive patients.

Those who have read my book for men will know that I actually have some unfortunate personal experience with this topic, once upon a time I got HPV from some skank in Denver (actually, I'm not sure where I got HPV from, but I got it!) and then I gave it to my wife and she had to get surgery. And (in an episode of karmic justice) I had to get warts burned off my dick with a laser (yes, really). But neither of these two unpleasant operations guaranteed that we were HPV-free with the prospect of cervical cancer squarely in the rearview. A resurgent infection remained a possibility so since then we have used Turkey Tail cyclically -  at least once a year (typically, around wintertime when our immune systems need a little extra help) I'll order us a few months' supply of the stuff - and consistently my wife's pap smear results come back clean. It worked for us.

Overview of the recent science

In this young decade alone, there have been 13 pieces of human research published on Pubmed. Here we'll summarize the recent scientific findings. A lot of the research is focused on science's emerging understanding of this and other mushrooms' anti-cancer mechanisms. Especially, its mechanism suppressing breast cancer.

From the study abstract of a Polish paper published recently

We conclude that the [Turkey Tail] extract possesses cytotoxic activity against cancer cells and endothelial cells and has the ability to inhibit the expression of the pro-tumorigenic factors associated with inflammation.

Interestingly, in 2021 a Polish scientific paper was written about how they synthesized very potent antimicrobial colloidal Biogenic Gold Nanoparticles from Coriolus versicolor.

More on the promising anti-cancer potential of mushrooms, from the Slovakian review that I mentioned earlier...

In the case of cervical cancer, the beneficial effects of medicinal mushrooms on hindering the development of the disease, mainly due to cell cycle arrest and induction of apoptosis, have been proven.

However, a 2022 meta-analysis evaluated the data from seven different randomized controlled trials, totaling over 1500 mostly Japanese patients, of Turkey Tail an intervention for the adverse events resulting from conventional chemotherapy for colorectal cancer. And the meta-analysis concludes, anticlimactically, that it's unclear whether or not the mushroom actually helps relieve those suffering from cancer (or from Iatrogenic mainstream cancer treatment.)

Powdered vs capsuled Turkey Tail

I prefer it powdered over capsules simply because I can combine it with other herbs - like Chaga or Tongkat Ali (for natural testosterone support) - in a tasty dark tea. My wife and I drank adaptogenic herbal tea almost every day during the winter of 2022 and we thankfully stayed healthy, avoiding illness.

Importantly

Nutraceuticals come from the natural world, they tend to absorb the toxins in the environment around them, making many of the herbal supplements that you might find possibly Iatrogenic - they may actually do you more harm than good. This is why I wouldn't buy any old Turkey Tail that I found on store shelves or online, especially if it's cheap. I'd also prefer not to get my Turkey Tail in a "multi-vitamin" stack that combines it with a bunch of other things unless they proved its purity with a certificate of analysis. I enthusiastically recommend PureBulk.com's Turkey Tail as they have the highest standards in the industry for quality assurance and purity testing.

Turkey tail mushroom extract comes from a polypore mushroom known as Trametes versicolor. It also goes by the names Coriolus versicolor and Polyporus versicolor. The general meaning of Trametes versicolor is ‘of several colors.’ Its distinct coloration is reminiscent of a wild turkey, which makes identifying turkey tail mushrooms in the wilderness rather easy. Turkey tail mushrooms form in thin, leathery concentric circles and often resemble leaves in shape. As an extract, turkey tail mushroom powder may provide several benefits.