Can a Cultured Mushroom Extract *REALLY* Shrink Tumors, Clear HPV & Supercharge Immunity?, with Meagan Lindquist

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life Podcast.

So they gave these 195 participants about 6 grams of AHCC per day for 6 months, and they were measuring the tumor size, the tumor mass, and also NK cell activation and some other anti-cancer cytokines, these chemical messengers that start to tell the body to break this tumor down. They were measuring all of this. The results were absolutely astounding.

Welcome to The Boundless Life with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist, and nutritionist, and I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity, and beyond. Hey, so for today's podcast, I interviewed, um, this woman who's an expert in something never heard of before. It's called AHCC. This is weird mushroom extract stuff that just blows up your immune system in a good way and has all these other effects. Some of the stuff she talks about with cancer and HPV and autoimmune stuff is pretty mind-blowing. And, it's pretty rare I come across something I haven't heard of before until now. So, check the audio and the video out. Shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/AHCCPodcast. Let's tune in with Megan Lindquist. I'm always on the lookout for cool new compounds that I haven't heard of before. And one of my buddies, he's known as like the world's greatest formulator, Shawn Wells, he and I were talking about immunity and he's like, "You got to check out this stuff called AHCC." And he's been on the podcast a few times and I usually generally trust what he says or at least trust enough to look into it. And apparently, it's like this immunity powerhouse mushroom extract stuff. I'd never heard of it before. And so, I started digging into it and Megan Lindquist, it appears that you are the world's leading authority on this stuff, but you were a dental hygienist before that. So, I'm sure you have an interesting story about this. It's one of those situations in which I just come across this fringe thing I've never heard of before. And then, you sent me this stuff which tastes incredible. It's like a cinnamon swirl latte. And, it's always good when stuff doesn't taste like, pardon the expression, ass. And then, you got the capsules here. And, I'm super interested in this stuff because I get a lot of questions from people about this time of season going into cold and flu season and travel and immunity. And, a lot of people know that mushrooms are good for immunity and they've heard about chaga and stuff like that. But, this is kind of a new kid on The Block. So if you are listening or watching, all the show notes are going to be at bengreenfieldlife.com/ahccpodcast. I said that right, AHCC? Yep. AHCC Podcast. I don't even remember what it stands for, but you can get into that. So what is it?

Yeah, it's a good place to start. First, I just want to say thank you for allowing me into your beautiful home and allowing me to share this with your audience. Helping me like fulfill one of my dreams and one of my purposes, I believe, on this earth is to, is to help share this.

Yeah. Well, it was kind of random, by the way, because I was going to interview you today and then I found out like last week that you guys were in town.

Yeah, yeah, it worked out perfect. But yeah, so AHCC is a cultured mycelial product that comes from the mycelia of several different species of mushrooms, including shiitake. So it's classified as a functional health food, but that really doesn't reflect the vast nature of use that we see for so many different diseases and conditions.

What's that mean, by the way, classified as a food? Does that mean like by the FDA is something different than a—

Well, it's not regulated by the FDA, but it is Mushrooms in general are considered health foods, functional foods. So because it's derived from mushrooms, it's not a mushroom in and of itself. You wouldn't go out to the forest and find an AHCC mushroom. But it's derived from the mycelia of several super potent hybridized mushroom strains including shiitake.

That's great. So the people who are taking like 70 different supplements and are embarrassed about that don't have to make this 71 because this just counts as food.

Yeah, yeah. It's a functional food. Um, so we know with, you know, health supplements in general, they're generally very safe. So it has an extremely high robust safety profile, but it also has, um, really impressive clinical and medical indication of use for things ranging from HPV to cancerous tumors to Lyme to all sorts of different chronic issues, skin issues like hydrogenitis suppurativa, herpes warts.

No clue what that is. Sounds horrible. It is, yes. Any disease that's hard to pronounce. I know, right?

It is not a fun condition to live with. They think it has an autoimmune link. So AHCC is classified as this, which I'm sure we'll get deeper into, but it's actually an immunomodulator. So it's able to modulate the immune system, not just boost it, not just suppress it like someone would take a medication for autoimmune that's pressing their immune system. It really can do both and both at the same time, which is very unique.

So, some of the stuff you listed off, skin issues, Lyme to a certain extent, a lot of these are not considered "I got sick" issues but more because there was something going around but more like actual autoimmune body attacking itself issues. So, you're saying it can also help with that kind of stuff?

Yes, absolutely.

How did you find out about this?

So, my love affair/obsession with the HCC began where all, many, many good stories start, which is at my rock bottom of my health hellhole. I was recently divorced in 2018. I was really sick, kind of like self-induced, orthorexic, exercising too much.

Was that when you were a dental hygienist?

Yeah, I was a dental hygienist and I loved it, loved being a dental hygienist. I'm still a dental nerd at heart. And actually it was in the dental office that I learned about AHCC. In our office, one of the women, one of the patients that we worked with, she got diagnosed with HPV in her 50s and her naturopath recommended this quote unquote mushroom supplement to help clear her HPV and it worked and I was astounded. I was like, what is this stuff? I need to learn more about it. I got on the internet, looked up Dr. Google and found out that it had its own research organization and I was blown away. I dove down the rabbit hole and I—

The AHCC has, not HPV, but AHCC has its own research organization.

AHCC has its own research organization. And I dove down this rabbit hole and I've never come out. As I learned more and more about it, I just kept telling myself, there was this nudge from inside like, I need to tell more people about this. I need to keep talking to people about this. And then I used it on myself. I started taking it and along with other mushrooms, listening to podcasts like yours and others, like really diving into like what is holistic health really. It's not over-exercising, it's not under-eating, it's not just being skinny. It's, it's more than that. It's really like coming from the inside out. And it really helped me break through some of the issues that I was having. And then I started sharing it with my patients. I started sharing about it on Instagram. My account kept growing and growing. Then in 2019, I went to the ICNIM, which is the International Congress on Nutrition and Integrative Medicine in Japan, where all AHCC comes from.

All the crazy stuff comes out of Japan.

Or Russia.

Or China.

And that's where AHCC originated. Or China.

One of those three.

So I went to Japan with a group of people and I attended this congress, which was really kind of researchers and doctors, physicians from all over the world studying AHCC and presenting their research. It was like a 3-day red carpet event for me, you know, learning more about AHCC.

A very small niche area of the world.

I mean, there was over 500 people there. That is amazing. Yeah, it was incredible. I mean, it is—

Were they mostly Japanese people?

No, they were from Italy, from Brazil, definitely from America as well. I mean, all over the place. This is studied all over the world. It's the most clinically researched specialty immune supplement in the world.

I mean, I talk to a lot of people and kind of sort of fancy myself as somebody who likes to stay on the bleeding edge. I'd never heard of it until like 3 months ago. Is this new or something that's been used for a long time?

It was created in 1986. So, it started in Japan and—

It was created. You mean that the mushroom was created. It was manufactured. But the way to get it out of the mushroom.

So, I'll pull on that thread a little bit. So, in 1986, a group of doctors led by Dr. Toshihiko Okamoto in Japan at Tokyo University. They were studying a bunch of different species of mushroom mycelia and how they affected NK cells. And they really wanted to find the most robust activation of NK cells.

NK is like the killer cells for the immune system.

Natural killer cells.

The natural killer.

These are like these silent assassins that they don't need permission from anybody in the immune system to take out a cancer cell, to take out viral replication. So these are— if your NK cells are down to zero, you're dead. We saw it during COVID NK cells were very, very important. People with low NK cell counts usually struggled really horribly with—

does that have with AIDS too?

Um, AIDS I think is a cluster. Yeah, it's a cluster of things happening there. But, um, so these doctors were studying this mycelia. They found a, a group, you know, that they felt comfortable with. They saw really robust activation of NK cells. They created a mass sample of this AHCC, put it in an ISO-certified deep freezer. And so every sample, every, every batch of AHCC, every capsule is absolutely identical because it comes from this one super sample in this deep freezer.

Like still the same place? Yes. Since 1986? Yes. My gosh.

Yeah.

So how's that like sustained? Is it a really big freezer?

So you only need a tiny sample for them to keep. Yeah, you only need a tiny sample for it then to grow and to culture.

So it's cultured over 45 to 60 days. So, from a business standpoint, would a supplement company use this as their contract manufacturer, get a small batch, and then they could grow it themselves?

No. The process, the manufacturing process is completely patented. All AHCC comes out of one source in Japan, in Sapporo, Japan, which is where I visited, saw the whole manufacturing process.

Jeez, hope that place doesn't burn down.

Fingers crossed. Yeah. And so that's one, one of the many reasons why AHCC is so unique, why it's so different than any other mushroom supplement, but also any other supplement at large because of the culturing process and the way that it, it cultures for about 45 to 60 days. And there's a very specific enzyme reaction that breaks down the, the molecules so that they are better absorbed by the human body. So they're more bioavailable. It's more potent than your run-of-the-mill mushroom supplement.

Do you know if you like, so the culturing thing, do you like take certain mushrooms and then mix them with something?

Like, hopefully this isn't a stupid question.

No, it's not a stupid question.

Yeah, so it's a liquid tank. So they take this sample of mycelia, they, and I don't know every single detail of the proprietary process because it's proprietary. They don't really like let out every single step of the process to just anyone, but they're basically taking a small sample and that they, basically the mycelial mass grows and then they're putting it in a liquid tank for up to 60 days, then it goes through a concentration and freezing process and then it's encapsulated. So it's a very long, very specific process that's different than any real, any other product out there.

Totally random question because you brought capsules a few times. So like this stuff, this powder, —do you just take the capsules and break them open?

Yeah, so we use a manufacturer where they're using chaga and tremella, and this is the fruiting body. So if you go back to 7th grade biology class, if you're looking at the fungal organism, the fruiting body is what sprouts out above the ground. That's what many different mushroom products are made of.

That's what Mushy Love is included in. This is not AHCC? Nope. This is AHCC. Gotcha. That's what I was confused about.

So these are different ones.

Yes. What does the AHCC taste like?

It's just earthy. It's just earthy. It's not too bad, honestly. We have people that just put it in water and drink it down, but it's really not too bad. But yeah, Mushy Love is a completely different product. AHCC is in a class of its own.

So if Mushy Love is chaga and tremella, I'm assuming like you're— like, you got— what's your website? The Medicine? So you guys make and sell the Mushy Love, but then you also have your own version of AHCC. Yes. Yeah. So the, the chaga and tremella in that, how would you compare that to whatever they're using as the mushrooms in this one?

Yeah. So basically we're using the fruiting body mushrooms of chaga and tremella, and it's just a different molecular structure. So although I love our product, it's amazing. I love using fruiting body products. It's just not the same because of when you look at the molecular structure of what's in here is mostly beta glucans. Which you've probably heard of before. What's in— what's most powerful in the AHCC is called alpha glucans, and they go through this enzyme process that basically changes the alpha glucans even more. So they're much smaller on a molecular level, going from 200,000 Daltons, which is what beta glucans are, to about 5,000 Daltons, which is what—

yeah, the measurement, the unit of measure.

And so the smaller the molecule, the it is for you to absorb. That's why just eating a bunch of shiitake mushrooms is absolutely not the same. Okay, so they are using shiitake for this one. Yeah, it's shiitake and a couple others.

I was gonna ask you, like, why couldn't I just go get it?

Because they taste delicious, and I get that question all the time. And you should, you should throw them in your stir fry or whatever, but it's not gonna, it's not gonna yield the same result as having AHCC in your body because of that molecular structure, the bioavailability, bioavailability, and the potency of AHCC. That's unlike any other mushroom supplement.

I'm going to try to spit this out because you corrected me. Um, I think it was Sean who got me interested in this. He said, you gotta check out this AHCC stuff, it's like active hexose correlated compound. Did I get that? Active hexose correlated compound. Yeah, that's what people— and then you're like, no, it doesn't really stand for that. Yeah, yeah.

So this is a big misunderstanding that the manufacturers and we are trying to kind of correct as we go along because Way back, you know, many years ago, during the, the many different research studies that have come out, one of the researchers basically coined this, this term, this active hexose-correlated compound. He started calling AHCC this, and you see it a lot in different studies. So someone looks it up on Google, they're going to see active hexose-correlated compound. How I explain it is like organified green juice. Has ashwagandha in it, but it's not ashwagandha. It's— ashwagandha is one of the components of Organifi Green Juice, and you're drinking Organifi Green Juice with the many constituents. AHCC has active hexose correlated compound as one of the fractions, but it's not the entire thing. There's other parts to it. So he pulled out this acronym, put it in a study, and then it kind of snowballed from there. What's AHCC stand for? The manufacturers never intended it to be an acronym. I know it's kind of confusing because it sounds like it should be.

I think it's confusing because there's something in it that is an acronym for active hexose correlated compound, but then AHCC itself is not an acronym.

It's very confusing.

Is this like the fault of the Japanese lab?

You'll even hear me on very early podcasts, you know, talking about, oh, it stands for active hexose correlated because it's in the research. You think if it's in research, this has got to be right. But, you know, I just had a call with the manufacturers last week and, you know, we continue to talk about, okay, how do we explain this in a way that's graspable for people? Yeah. Yeah. So it's very confusing, but it's just AHCC. Okay.

So you said the research and then this is always the kicker. You know, whenever we're talking about a supplement, there's all these little like, okay, was it done in rodents? Was it done in humans? Is this the amount that they actually use in the study? You have to take 10 times more. So what is the actual research and relevance of the research for— I realize this is kind of like a potentially rabbit hole-y question, but like for different conditions.

Yeah, I would love to dive into the research. There's over 100 different studies that have been published, probably even more at this point, and then 30, over 30 human clinical trials for all different things from cancer to liver disease to autoimmune to HPV. To medication-resistant epilepsy, like a whole slew of things. So when we talk about research, I usually try to pull out the most relevant and the studies that are, you know, that are going to resonate most for people. Like, pretty much all of us have either been directly or indirectly affected by cancer, and that's one of— that's really where AHCC shined initially. Again, NK cell activation, or like if somebody has cancer, somebody has cancer, using this alongside whatever treatment they're using, whether that's chemo, or there also have been studies where people are using this alone to shrink their tumor. So one of the absolutely jaw-dropping studies that's in this book— no, I didn't, this is Fred Pescatore. That's not your pen name, Fred? Possibly an HCC book coming from me in the future. Um, we'll see how it goes.

Compound Japanese medicinal mushrooms being used for prevention and complementary treatment of infections, liver disease, cancer, and other conditions. Kind of looks like it was written in the '80s.

Yeah, it's small but potent. So one of the studies in there was an in-hospital study published in this book, and it was a group of doctors led by Dr. Katsuaki Uno in Comfort Hospital in Japan. I don't know how you remember that. It just rolls off your tongue. Yeah, this was about 1998 to 2000, and this is incredible. So they had 195 stage 4 cancer patients that had very poor prognosis. So their cancer tumors ranged from ovarian to breast to prostate to liver, all over the place. This was a widespread of cancerous tumors, and they gave— and these people have, you know, like I said, no good options as it comes to conventional treatment. They gave these 195 participants about 6 grams of AHCC per day for 6 months. They were measuring cancer, the tumor size, the tumor mass, and also NK cell activation and some other anti-cancer cytokines, these chemical messengers that start to tell the body to break this tumor down. They were measuring all of this. And so, okay, 6 grams of HCC for 6 months to 195 stage 4 cancer patients. The results were absolutely astounding. So out of 195, 114 people had a 50% or more reduction in the, in the size of their tumor in 4 weeks or less.

And the only thing they changed was, was introducing—

they said HCC and other immune stimulants, so other health foods. Okay. And this is after they've already been given the prognosis of like surgery is not an option or chemo didn't work for you. So this is like their last effort. So 50%, more than 50%, so 114 out of 195 people, that's like 60% or something, they had a 50% or more reduction in their cancer, in their tumor mass, in 4 weeks or less. 17 of those patients, their tumor disappeared in 4 weeks or less. Wow. And again, it comes back to this NK cell activation, right?

Because these are the silent assassins. People go to Mexico and get NK cell infusions. Yes. And what you're saying is like this, what do you call that, alpha glucan, that's triggering your body's own production or something?

Yeah, it's kind of a slew of mechanism of action. It's not just one. One thing, um, but this is just one study that's showing like there's like real potential, and sometimes even more potential the sicker the person is, because the sicker the person is, the more activation, the more response AHCC gives to that person. It's not just going in like for you, if you started taking AHCC, you probably don't have any systemic issues. I don't have any systemic issues. It's just going to keep us maintained. It's just gonna keep us, you know, maintained. For someone who's battling a cancerous tumor, they need a lot of activation. And HCC, in all of its intelligence, is able to somehow— which we don't even fully understand how exactly— we can measure like, okay, this cell is signaling this, and these two cells are communicating, and this is activated over here. But like, the how is kind of still a mystery.

Have they ever looked at just how often you get sick versus you don't get sick if you're taking it, just like a healthy person who doesn't want to get sick. That's what I'm super interested in.

This is the number one piece of feedback that we get from our customers and users, and I take it every day, have for 6 years, and I haven't been sick in 2 and a half.

How much do you take?

I haven't been sick in 2 and a half years. I take 2 capsules a day. Okay. Does it matter when? This is about 100, excuse me, 1.5 grams. Grams, which would be 2 of our capsules per day. Empty stomach, with food, does it matter? Empty stomach is fine, with food is fine. Because it's a health food, there's not really strict recommendations on exactly when you need to take it. I usually tell people like right before a meal, right before breakfast, right before dinner, but really any time is fine. They've studied that too in different studies and they really find that it doesn't matter a whole lot as long as it's getting in your body. So that is the number one piece of feedback that we hear from people. Teachers love it. They're exposed to little snotty kids all day, every day, and they really love it for protecting their immune system, optimizing these very specific important cells within both branches of the immune system. That's another way that this is very unique is that it's not just supporting one thing. It's not just supporting one branch of the immune system. It's supporting—

You mean like the, what's it called, the innate?

Innate and adaptive. And they have these different cells within each branch, and NK cells are part of the innate immune system, the branch. But things like T cells and B cells that are really important for long-term immunity— your body, you know, being able to formulate an antibody to an antigen, to a pathogen, right? It's the T cell and B cell activation. But On the innate side, we have the NK cells that we've already talked about. We also have dendritic cells that are really important.

The immediate response, the adaptive is kind of like how you build a memory and fight something off in the future.

Exactly. So HCC really supports both branches and they see an activation and amplification of the intelligence of both branches of the immune system. That's why I think it's so powerful for people who are healthy that just want to stay healthy.

You said HPV 3 times already. That's human papilloma virus. I don't know that much about it, but is it a really big issue for people?

Yeah. Oh, it's a huge issue, mostly for women because we are the ones that get pap smears. There's no equivalent of men getting pap smears.

Oh, is that what the pap part of pap smear stands for? Papilloma?

No, it's a person's last name. It's Papilomao or something like that.

But you would think it would be— Sounds like some Greek dude, Papilopous. Yeah, it's something like that.

But no, HPV stands for human papillomavirus. It is the virus that is said to, you know, there's different strains, but can lead to cervical cancer for women if you have a high-risk strain of HPV. Um, there's low-risk strains that cause genital warts. They're not very fun or cute, but like you're not gonna die from it. Right. And so there are these other high-risk strains that can be dangerous. Um, and I know right now there's, someone listening, there's a woman listening that just got diagnosed recently, or maybe she's been dealing with it for years, um, and feels pretty desperate. So I hope she hears this part of the podcast because HCC has been shown to be a very, um, non-invasive, low-hanging fruit to support the body in dealing with HPV the way that it should. So one study— that is, I think was published in 2022 in Frontiers in Oncology, was a phase 2 clinical trial, double-blind, placebo-controlled. They had 50 participants with high-risk persistent HPV. This means high-risk, meaning it can lead to cancer, persistent, meaning they haven't been able to clear it for over 2 years. Their body's having a hard time for whatever reason. So they split these two into treatment and placebo. The treatment group received 3 grams a day of AHCC for 6 months. Again, the results were astounding. 3 grams.

Oh, 1, so 2, so it would be like 4.

4 capsules. 4 capsules. You can split it up morning and evening. What they saw was a clearance of 63.6% of the women were testing negative at 6 months or less. After that, since all the, all the women in the treatment group handled it very well, there were no adverse reactions, they unblinded the study and then they offered it to the placebo group. And 50%, another 50% of those women were able to clear in 6 months of AHCC use. So like, this is a huge, huge thing for women. It affects men too, but like, again, most guys have no idea that they are spreading HPV. And it's It's kind of a burden that sits on the woman's shoulders, unfortunately. Um, and we're really not given a lot of good options, meaning zero good non-invasive options. It's usually like, all right, get the vaccine, or we're going to cut away part of your cervix, or we're going to do more biopsies. Doctors, I have so much respect for many of them, but they're not taught how to counsel a woman on like how to support your immune system. Them, they usually say something like, just be healthy and don't smoke, don't drink. Yeah. And that's not really that helpful. Take some vitamin C, right? And so they're not really giving that great of advice, um, you know. But this is very— this is very close to my heart because I work with a lot of women who are navigating HPV. Um, I actually work with Dr. Nathan Riley, who I think you've had on his— on your podcast.

He's like He's the holistic OB-GYN. He has been on the show before.

I think he's been on the show. Yeah, I listen to it. Yeah. Okay. And so we teamed up and we created this program for women who are trying to clear HPV. HCC is a big cornerstone piece of that because it's so powerful. Overnight you're supporting your immune system. But then we also look at the lifestyle factors like what are you eating, how much are you working out, what do your relationships look like?— you go very deep and it's a big help to women who are kind of on an island trying to figure this out.

Speaking of women, I'm assuming Healthy for Pregnancy, you're pregnant.

Yes. Yeah. So I take it every day. I would never tell a woman like, you know, what she puts in her body is up to her. It's really what you're comfortable with. I've been studying HCC for many years. I'm very familiar with the safety profile. There literally is— they've never been able to find a toxic dose, surprisingly. So in the safety studies, they gave these poor little rats an equivalent of a 600-gram megadose. What would be equivalent to you and I?

600 grams of THC?

600 grams. I take 1.5 every day.

Oh, 1.5 grams. Okay, that's a lot.

I take a gram and a half a day just for general health. They gave these little rats the equivalent of 600 grams. None of them died. None of them had any sort of horrible reaction, so they had to basically estimate the toxic dose. Yeah. So all that to say, it has an extremely high safety profile.

You talked about the liver and you said liver disease. Is that like non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or—

Yeah, I think it could be. It's both. I mean, it's, it's, um, people that have, you know, what you just mentioned, but also People have been drinking for a while and their liver's not in tip-top shape.

So like if I had elevated liver enzymes, is that something that we could try?

Yes, absolutely. We've received quite a few testimonials from people who have had different stages of liver disease or like, "Hey, my doctor says my liver enzymes are way off." HTC is very supportive of the liver. Like I mentioned, the Fred Pescatore book, The author, he was one of the first physicians in the United States to use AHCC and he started with his hardest liver disease patients that he couldn't really get under control. He started giving them AHCC. I've interviewed him on our podcast. What's your podcast? The Medicine Podcast.

Like medicine without an E? Yes, like our brand.

So all that to say, yes, it is very, very supportive of liver health. There was actually a study in 2002 in the Journal of Hepatology on hepatology that looked at how basically how HCC could support people with liver disease who had had surgery and basically preventing recurrence and death after, um, after surgery.

A decrease in the detoxification metabolic enzyme glutathione S-transferase in the liver. So it would like improve your ability to detox. Yes, absolutely. He says infections on her. Are there other infections? 'Cause I mean, you said Lyme, but—

Yes, yeah, so we see it with things like just simple cold and flu, you know, the infections that everyone gets. HPV obviously is considered an STI. It's a sexually transmitted infection. You know, oh, Lyme, like I mentioned, really, really cool data coming out around Lyme. You know, people who struggle with Lyme basically have like, you know, the flu year-round is what it feels like. Yeah, je vois. You're just like, You know, it's miserable. And so there was a pilot study, so it was small, but they had 12 participants ranging from 20 years old to 80 years old with stage 1 to stage 3 Lyme disease. They gave 3 grams of HCC for 8 weeks to these— to all of the participants.

3 grams, that's like— 4 capsules. 4 caps, okay.

For 8 weeks. And they were measuring things like joint pain, eye health, cardiovascular health, fatigue, just quality of life in general. And they had 100% of the participants— so every participant was helped in some way, whether partially, yeah, I feel a lot better, or completely, like, I feel normal. Yeah. Um, so we see just incredible results ranging again from so many different diseases and conditions. And it's— I think it comes down to, you know, I'm still learning about this all the time. I would never call call myself an expert because I'm constantly learning and understanding deeper about how this works in the body.

Yeah, you're the only person I know of who went to the Japanese—

ICNI, yeah. Congress thing, yeah. But it has various mechanisms of action. We mentioned that a few minutes ago. There's really like 4 that I like to talk about that really puts it into perspective of like, oh, I see how these puzzle pieces are coming together. Because when I talk about it, there's someone listening right now doubtful that's like, "This sounds like a freaking miracle." Like one-size-fits-all miracle, whatever. I totally get that, but when you look at the mechanism of action that they're able to prove within the research, one is the immune modulation, which is helping both branches of the immune system have more, amplifying your innate intelligence basically, and it's both boosting and able to suppress and at the same time. So like if a person, if a woman has an autoimmune condition, then gets diagnosed with HPV, does she need her immune system to calm down or does she need it to be boosted? And HCC has the ability to do both at the same time via these different cells that do different things within the body. So it doesn't just activate haphazardly. It's not just arbitrarily raising your NK cells if you don't need it. It's able to like—

it's like an adaptogen kind of— exactly. Yeah, which a lot of mushrooms are.

Yes, but this is amplified. Again, because of the bioavailability and the potency of those small alpha glucans that's unique to AHCC because of the culturing process. So we have the immune modulation. It's also a very powerful antioxidant. So both direct and indirect—

Probably because of that liver glutathione thing.

Yes. So direct meaning like, this is why it's so helpful for people going through chemotherapy because chemotherapy is a very powerful oxidant. It's kind of taking out everything in its path. HCC is able to offset that because it's acting as an antioxidant. So it's decreasing the negative side effects of chemotherapy while it's not like blocking the cytotoxicity of it. No, it's increasing the anti-cancer effects and decreasing the, the negative side effects like liver damage, hair loss, digestive issues, things like that.

Good luck convincing your doctor. Like, I I know so many people whose doctors have them on chemo and they're just like, "No, don't take anything," because they just play it super safe. I especially go about antioxidants like, "Don't take any antioxidants because we're actually trying to oxidize." Yeah, I get that.

If there's someone listening right now who's moving through this, navigating treatment for cancer or your dad or your mom or whoever, talk to your doctor, print out some of the studies, the many studies that have been done on cancer and chemotherapy, and physically hand them to your doctor because like there's one study here, it talks about the improved quality of life with chemo and AHCC. So this was the International Journal of Clinical Medicine in 2011. And they had 25 patients with advanced stages of head and neck cancer. And the aim of the study was to see how AHCC paired with chemo. Was it safe? Did it amplify things? What's the reaction here? So 25 patients received 3 grams a day of AHCC before, during, and after treatment of chemotherapy. And what they saw was all of the patients tolerated AHCC well with no new side effects. 20 of the 25 patients reported better, significantly improved quality of life, 6 hours a day average, on average, less in bed. So they're able to be about, you know, enjoy life more, which is huge. Um, almost every single patient reported higher levels of appetite, which is really important.

Um, staving off like cancer cachexia, muscle loss.

Yeah, you just lose everything. And so, um, 16 of the 25 patients actually needed a blood transfusion before using AHCC, and only 3 of them needed a blood transfusion after using AHCC. 22 of the 25 patients reported definite reduction in the chemotherapy side effects like digestive issues, hair loss, and nausea, vomiting, all these things. And so they actually shortened their stay in the hospital because they just felt better. Yeah. So from that, these researchers concluded that like AHCC seems to be totally safe to take Obviously, I still have to say, talk to your doctor. I'm not a medical professional, but like, it's in your best interest to at least look into this and see if it could be a possibility.

Yeah. Okay. So you've got the double whammy on the immune system. You've got the detox. What are the other two?

Yeah. Thank you for bringing me back to that. I'm always. Yeah. So the— it has a really powerful anti-inflammatory effect in the body as well. So when you look at CRP, C-reactive protein in the body, which is— I know you know this, but the blood marker that your doctor might look at if he wants to see like how inflamed is this person. We see it, we see high levels of CRP with active infections and things like cardiovascular disease. So if, you know, if we see CRP going down, generally that means your systemic inflammation is going down. And what they see is that HCC is able to lower CRP in the body, therefore reducing systemic inflammation. So it's really, really helpful, probably related to the antioxidant effect. Yeah, yeah, I think it's all synergistic together. So it's really helpful for people with arthritis. My sister has rheumatoid arthritis and it's the only non-pharmaceutical that has ever worked for her.

I wonder if it worked for like a non-autoimmune form of arthritis, just like— yeah, it does. Osteoarthritis, beat up joints.

I mean, I don't make claims that, oh, every single person, you're going to have this exact outcome with AHCC because Everyone's so different as far as your own individuality, but we've received many, many, oh my gosh, my joints feel so much better, less inflamed, all over the board. Not just arthritis, but just in general, the inflammation that can happen with so many different diseases and conditions. And so the last MOA, the last mechanism of action is the healthier response to stress. So, when we get stressed, our immune system tanks. Our NK cells tank, which is a real problem. Chronic stress. Yeah. You can get through a really stressful time and then usually, you get sick.

Because it's weird. It's like acute stress could technically— if you're doing a quick cold bath every day or a sauna, that can make the immune system stronger. But then, if you're just fighting the lion in your email inbox for 8 hours a day, you're wasting your time.

Or going through something— Diverse resources. Resources. Yeah, exactly. So it's not functioning properly, and we see this really intimately with HPV and stress. Um, usually women get diagnosed, from my experience working with women, after having a really stressful year, like, oh, I got divorced, or we moved, or my husband lost his job, or I'm starting a new business, or I'm planning a wedding. All of these things are very high stress and can be chronic, and so Basically what HCC is able to do is regulate your response to stress. So they actually see, you know, when you get stressed, your blood sugar can rise, you have a rise in adrenaline, which can be good sometimes but not chronically. Yeah. Um, and then also the immune function— immune dysfunction is what we see. So HCC is able to—

if you could like take it, alter that, track your HRV, and just kind of— because HRV kind of like without getting a blood test or a salivary test, just a little bit of a proxy.

I'd be curious. You know, I know you have all the gadgets and things.

You sent me a bottle and I took it for a little, but I didn't really know that much about it. I was just kind of messing around with it and didn't measure that much. Now that I'm learning more. So, how long does it take to kick in? Like, I'm flying to London— was it Monday? I'm Wednesday, right? If I took AHCC for the next couple of days, would I already get some shields activated?

Yes, absolutely. It's basically overnight your immune system starts to activate in a more intelligent way. So take this bottle, take 4 capsules a day. So what I recommend for people generally— and this isn't my recommendation, this is based off the research— so for general health, 2 capsules a day is great. That's what I take from day, you know, day-to-day basis. Haven't been sick in 2 and a half years. Um, but when I travel especially internationally. I mean, morning sickness from being pregnant, is that different? We haven't had some of that. It hasn't blocked that, unfortunately. But when I travel or if I'm around someone who's sick, even just in the same room or like whatever, or if I start to feel, you know that feeling when you're like, I think my body's kind of starting to fight something a little bit. I will amp it up big time. So for, you could even take up to 8 capsules. When my husband and I had COVID in 2020, 2021 or whatever it was, we were taking 8 to 10 capsules a day. And we, our body handled it like a cold. It was not a big deal for us. But we were also taking it before that too.

You think if you combine it with this that you get better effects? I mean, I'm assuming you haven't done research to see what happens.

No, I haven't done a combined mushroom product study here, but I do use Mushy Love every day. It does have 500 milligrams of chaga in every scoop, which is a hefty dose. Yeah.

So hold this up to the camera. Cinnamon Swirl Latte. Yeah, it's super delicious. You sent me a bag of this too. It was good. I like put it— it made my coffee taste like a cinnamon roll.

Yeah, it's very, very good. It's very versatile. You can have it on its own, bread or anything out of it. Oh yeah, you can add it to muffins, you can add it to pancakes. So HTC was our flagship product. This was our hero product. And then we made Mushy Love because we were kind of disappointed with other mushroom supplements out there, mushroom drinks, mushroom elixirs, because they're either not organic, they're not using high-quality mushrooms, or they're using—

they're using— everything on here says organic.

Yeah, they're using, um, mostly the myceliated grain. There's a lot of grain.

Yeah, I've heard that, like what you grow the mushroom on.

Yeah, yeah. So different than HCC, which is a mycelial product, but it's not grown on a grain mass. It's, it's cultured in a liquid tank and they're able to extract it, so it's pure. It's not myceliated grain.

It's completely different. I'm reading your story on the back here. This is a total rabbit hole, but so Chase— she's actually here, he's in the other room— it's your husband, right? Yes. Yeah, childhood sweethearts who married very young, but then you divorced and never thought you to see each other again, and then you just like hooked up again?

Yeah, yeah, mushrooms literally like connected us back together. This is part of the business? Yes, oh absolutely, I would not be here without Chase. Wow. I'm, you know, sort of the talking head on podcasts, and we have a podcast together, but he is all things finance, business, you know, he's my rock, and I would definitely not be here talking to you if it wasn't for him. Yeah.

Incredible. Um, besides this, do you know of anything— because a lot of my listeners like to stack stuff, you know, hack stuff— um, that you can take this with to either like increase the absorption or that you could take to increase the efficacy or anything like that?

Kind of some synergistic effects. So the absorption is already top-notch, like we talked about with the alpha glucans. You don't really have to worry about the absorption. Okay. Um, I suppose you could take it on an empty stomach to increase that just a little bit more. Um, but yeah, so with, um, we see really good effects with vitamin C. Obviously the antioxidant and immune boosting effects of vitamin C are really great. Um, other mushrooms, which we've talked about, high quality mushrooms, not just any mushroom supplement that you get on Amazon for $9. Like, I'm talking about like organic, high quality, tested, third-party tested you know, high-quality mushrooms. Yeah, um, you can't really take too many medicinal mushrooms because I didn't Google—

I think Amazon, the AHCC, and there's, there is some— I don't want to like have to throw people under the bus, but like, does— do they all— if they all come from the same place, doesn't matter?

Yeah, so this is very, very important. Um, do you want me to answer the first question first and then come back to this? Finish and then— okay, I'll come back to that because it's very important. Um, so for the synergistic effects. Probably a lot of your audience is already taking glutathione or NAC, and it really synergizes well because of the, the liver benefits. And then the other one would be ETAS, which I don't know if you've heard of ETAS, but it's an asparagus extract that amplifies the heat shock protein response. They're different. Um, no, it's different, it's different, it's its own thing. Um, but it, it, it's most beneficial result is the heat shock protein activation, which synergizes very— and they have done a study with ETAS and AHCC showing cellular resilience and lack of fatigue after, you know, hard workouts, things like that.

So I'm already doing a sauna for heat shock protein, that might help out more. And the glutathione makes sense because that little clip I read in there said it like keeps, uh, the, uh, what was it, the glutathione transferase, and like the enzyme that breaks down glutathione glutathione from degrading. So if you took glutathione, it'd stay in your body for a longer period of time if you were taking that.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't, I haven't seen specific studies showing that, but like, just using your logic, yeah, it seems like that would make sense. Okay, back to authentic AHCC. This is very important. So when we're talking about the quality of AHCC, it really shouldn't differ because again, it's patented from one source in Japan, but But it unfortunately does because you know this, there's so many fake and phony brands on Amazon and out there in the world. HCC is a very expensive product to manufacture. It's very expensive for us to even hold in our warehouse. Like, you know, kind of a side note, but Chase is my like business mind CFO at Organifi. He knows numbers in and out. When I brought this to him and I was like, I want to, I want to have this supplement. I, I can do this, you know. I want to talk about this. I want to have our Immune Intel AHCC. He was like looking at the cogs and the numbers because it's so expensive to manufacture. He was like, this is going to be really challenging. Um, but we made it work and my passion kind of shined through, I guess, and pulled us forward. But it— all that to say, it's not really that smart of a business decision for a bunch of brands to just start carrying HCC because of the cost. You know, people are trying to make the most profit possible.

You mean it'd be kind of like a luxury car company? Yeah, exactly.

It's expensive. And so what they, what they do is they slap a, you know, random label on a bottle. They might use a tiny sprinkle of HCC that's not going to do anything in your body, like 50 milligrams. That's not going to do anything. Or they don't even use authentic HCC. What they're doing is slapping a label on and calling it AHCC or calling it active hexose correlated compound.

Back to that thing, yeah.

So they put that on there and they might, you can create just active hexose correlated compound, but it's not the same as the full spectrum of AHCC, all of the components. So this is why we have a certification seal on our bottle.

Amazon is so sketch. It is. The one thing I pay attention to if I'm gonna order someone on Amazon is, is it from that company's actual like official store? Yeah. And if you don't, like, it might not even be that company's product.

Well, now Amazon— I don't know if you've seen, but even if they do have the, the store that sells on Amazon and these other people that sell on Amazon, they put them into one bin together. So they're grabbing and they don't know what they're grabbing, whether it's legit or not. So, you know, our AHCC is the highest quality you can get. It's 750mg per capsule. There's nothing else in in there. It's just AHCC, so we're not cutting any corners. Um, 750 milligrams is the max that you can put in one of those capsules.

1.5 milligrams is a dose with 2 capsules, so you're having less capsules.

Um, so it's, it's a high— it's a better value. Um, so yeah, I— it's very important. I'm glad you asked about that because, you know, it's something that the manufacturers are dealing with on a constant basis, trying to peel back these is inauthentic AHCC.

Yeah, well, hopefully after hearing this, a lot of people are going to want to try it. Like, I don't think I could listen to this podcast and not want to try it.

I mean, even if you're healthy— case for it. Yeah, even if you're healthy and you just want to stay that way.

Um, so if people want to like look at the actual research for themselves, uh, do you have it published on your website, or should they buy Fred's like 30-year-old book? Yeah, this, this book is actually—

I know it looks kind of janky. It Amazing, it's awesome. Like, I might just leave it, I might just leave it with you.

We'll break through in immune therapy. Yeah, so good. You have sections underlined.

Yeah, oh yeah. I call it my AHCC Bible, you know, it is, I've read it through probably 10 times. No. Okay, all right. But yeah, you can grab this book, it's like $12, it's like $12 on Amazon. But yeah, we do have some other research. I've written a bunch of blog posts about AHCC. If you're interested in HCC for HPV, we also have our Clear and Free program that helps women really get to the bottom of like, why is your body having a hard time clearing HPV? There's a reason why. Your stress buckets are overflowing for some reason. Let's get to the bottom of that. So we, that's our Clear and Free program at clearhpv.com. But yeah, we have a lot of the studies on our website, themedicine.com. You can also check out the AHCC research organization, which is ahcc.net.

Okay, and then I'm gonna put links to all this stuff. And then, uh, yesterday I got an email that you guys made us like a discount code and everything, knock a few bucks off. So it's, um, the show notes are bengreenfieldlife.com/AHCCpodcast, and I'll put all this stuff in there so you just have one source. So bengreenfieldlife.com/AHCCpodcast. Podcast. Megan, this is incredible. I love finding new, new stuff. Thanks for having me.

I haven't heard of before. Yeah, I love it. It was an absolute pleasure.

And oh, and if you get AHCC, try the Mushy Love too. It's not AHCC, but it tastes really—

it is really delicious.

We'll reinvent your morning with the liquid cinnamon roll, like it says on there. Yep. Yeah, you had me at liquid cinnamon roll. All right, thanks Megan. Thank you. To discover even more tips, tricks, hacks, and content to become the most complete boundless version of you, visit BenGreenfieldLife.com.

In compliance with the FTC guidelines, please assume the following about links and posts on this site. Most of the links going to products are often affiliate links of which I receive a small commission from sales of certain items, but the price is the same for you. And sometimes, I even get to share a unique and somewhat significant a discount with you. In some cases, I might also be an investor in a company I mention. I'm the founder, for example, of Kion LLC, the makers of Kion-branded supplements and products, which I talk about quite a bit. Regardless of the relationship, if I post or talk about an affiliate link to a product, it is indeed something I personally use, support, and with full authenticity and transparency recommend in good conscience. I personally vet each and every product that I talk about. My first priority is providing valuable information and resources to you that help you positively optimize your mind, body, and spirit. And I'll only ever link to products or resources, affiliate or otherwise, that fit within this purpose. So, there's your fancy legal disclaimer.