Meet Your Mushrooms
A world-record-breaking track team, a thousand years of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and a fungus that turns insects into puppets — Cordyceps is a lot more than an athlete's supplement. Here's the full story.
In 1993, the Chinese women's track and field team shattered three world records at the World Championships in Stuttgart. Their coach credited their performance, in part, to a daily regimen of Cordyceps mushroom supplementation. The athletic world was skeptical. Doping allegations followed.
Eventually, the athletes admitted to using Erythropoietin (EPO), a banned performance enhancing drug. But by then, Cordyceps had begun to capture the Western world's fascination, and kicked off a wave of research that's still accelerating today.
What the research is finding is that Cordyceps is a lot more than just an athlete's supplement. Here's what you need to know.
What Is Cordyceps?
Cordyceps is a genus of parasitic fungi with over 600 known species. The two most relevant to human health are Ophiocordyceps sinensis — the wild-harvested, caterpillar-killing variety that once fetched close to $20,000 per kilogram — and Cordyceps militaris, the cultivated species used in most modern supplements, including ours.
If you've seen The Last of Us, you already have a rough sense of what Cordyceps does in nature. In the wild, certain species target insects, colonize their bodies with mycelium, and manipulate their behavior before erupting through the host to disperse spores. Cordyceps lloydii, for example, compels infected ants to climb to the top of a tree, clamp onto a leaf, and hold that position until the fungus has consumed enough of the host to fruit through its head.
It sounds like science fiction. It's very real.
Cordyceps militaris, the species in our products, is somewhat less dramatic, preferring moth and butterfly pupae as hosts. But more importantly for our purposes, it contains higher levels of Cordycepin than Ophiocordyceps sinensis and can be cultivated commercially without insects, typically by fruiting the mushroom on a nutrified rice substrate.
The Key Compound: Cordycepin
The medicinal compound most responsible for Cordyceps' health benefits is Cordycepin, chemically known as 3'-Deoxyadenosine. It's a naturally occurring nucleoside analog, almost structurally identical to adenosine (one of the building blocks of DNA), and is found almost exclusively in Cordyceps species.
Research into Cordycepin has found that it has the potential to modulate immune function, inhibit tumor growth, lower blood pressure, and reduce blood vessel wall tension. It's also shown antiviral activity against a range of viruses including influenza, HIV, the Epstein-Barr virus, and Murine Leukemia virus.
That's a significant profile for a single compound. And Cordycepin is just one of several bioactive molecules at work in Cordyceps.
Cordycepin has deomonstrated antiviral activity against influenza, HIV, Epstein-Barr, and Murine Leukemia virus — a breadth of effect that's rare for a single natural compound.
Energy & Performance
Energy, ATP, and Why Athletes Care
The most well-known benefit of Cordyceps — the one that made it famous in 1993 — is its effect on energy production.
Cordyceps has been shown to increase the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the primary molecule your cells use to store and transfer energy. More ATP available to muscle cells means more fuel during exertion. Several studies have also found that Cordyceps may improve the body's ability to utilize oxygen during exercise, effectively raising your aerobic ceiling and delaying the onset of exercise-induced fatigue by reducing lactic acid accumulation in muscles.
This isn't a stimulant effect. Cordyceps doesn't work like caffeine. The energy benefit is more about improving the efficiency of your body's own energy systems rather than artificially spiking them.
Heart Health
Heart Health and Circulation
In China, Cordyceps is approved as a treatment for arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat. This effect is attributed to the adenosine content in Cordyceps, which plays a role in regulating heart rhythm and supporting cardiovascular function.
Furthermore, animal studies have found that Cordyceps can decrease LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglyceride levels, both of which are associated with cardiovascular disease risk. And the same vasodilatory effects that make Cordyceps interesting for blood pressure also have implications for circulation and overall heart health.
Immune & Anti-Tumor
Immune Support, Anti-Tumor, and Anti-Inflammatory Effects
Cordyceps' immune-modulating properties are among its most studied. Research has found that Cordycepin and other Cordyceps compounds can both stimulate and regulate immune response, making them potentially useful not just for fighting illness but for keeping the immune system balanced and preventing it from overreacting.
On the anti-tumor front, studies have found that Cordyceps compounds can induce apoptosis, i.e. programmed cell death, in cancer cells and reduce tumor formation across several cancer types including breast, liver, kidney, and gallbladder. These findings are primarily from in vitro (test tube) and animal studies, but the consistency across multiple cancer types is notable.
Cordyceps also demonstrates meaningful anti-inflammatory activity, which connects to many of its other benefits. Chronic low-grade inflammation is a driver of cardiovascular disease, metabolic dysfunction, cognitive decline, and accelerated aging , and Cordyceps appears to interrupt that process at the cellular level.
Blood Sugar & Aging
Blood Sugar, Aging, and Beyond
Two additional areas of research worth highlighting:
Blood sugar regulation: Cordyceps contains a type of sugar that may help people with Type 2 Diabetes better manage blood glucose levels by mimicking the action of insulin. Studies have also found hypoglycemic effects, i.e. the ability to lower blood sugar, in both animal models and early human research.
Anti-aging: Cordyceps has been shown in animal studies to extend lifespan and reduce markers of oxidative stress, which is one of the primary mechanisms of cellular aging. Human research is still limited, but the proposed mechanism of reducing free radical damage and improving mitochondrial efficiency is biologically sound.
Additional areas with supporting research include improved sperm count and libido, enhanced bone health, and nerve growth factor stimulation, suggesting potential cognitive benefits that overlap with better-known nootropic mushrooms like Lion's Mane.
Check Out our Lion's Mane & Cordyceps blend, FLOW, here.
| Energy & ATPIncreases ATP production; may raise the body's aerobic ceiling | Heart HealthApproved in China for arrhythmia; lowers LDL & triglycerides |
| Immune ModulationCordycepin stimulates & regulates immune response | Anti-TumorInduces apoptosis in cancer cells across multiple cancer types |
| Blood SugarMimics insulin action; hypoglycemic effects in early research | Anti-AgingExtends lifespan & reduces oxidative stress in animal studies |
| AntiviralActive against influenza, HIV, Epstein-Barr & Murine Leukemia virus | Anti-InflammatoryInterrupts chronic low-grade inflammation at the cellular level |
Wild vs. Cultivated: What You Actually Get
Ophiocordyceps sinensis — the wild-harvested, insect-parasitizing variety — is the species with the longest traditional use history. It's also extraordinarily rare and expensive, harvested by hand at high altitude in the Himalayas. Most of what's sold as "wild Cordyceps" today is either adulterated, misidentified, or prohibitively expensive for everyday supplementation.
Cordyceps militaris, the cultivated species, has shown comparable or in some cases superior bioactive compound concentrations to wild O. sinensis, particularly for Cordycepin, which is actually found in higher concentrations in C. militaris than in its wild counterpart. For a daily supplement, cultivated Cordyceps militaris is the scientifically and practically sound choice.
What matters most, as with any mushroom supplement, is that you're getting mushroom fruit bodies, not mycelium grown on grain, and that the product is properly extracted to make those compounds bioavailable.
Shop our Cordyceps Extract, with third-party verified levels of Cordycepin and a 30-day money back guarentee, here.
The Cordyceps Supplement Checklist
✦ Is it made from Cordyceps militaris fruit bodies? (Not mycelium, not grain substrate)
✦ Is it a dual extract? (Both water-soluble and alcohol-soluble compounds need to be extracted)
✦ Does the brand disclose its extraction process? (If they don't, assume it's basic)
✦ Is there third-party testing for Cordycepin concentration? (This is the marker of a serious product)
Explore Further
→ Medicinal Mushroom Extractions: Our Process
→ Ultrasonic Extraction: Why We Do What We Do
→ Medicinal Mushroom Dual Extracts: What They Are and Why They Matter
→ Lion's Mane — A Natural Nootropic
→ Reishi — the Mushroom of Immortality
→ Turkey Tail — A Tonic for Tumors
Ready to try a genuine Cordyceps dual extract made from 100% fruit bodies?
Shop Cordyceps Extract →As with any dietary supplement, consult with your physician before incorporating Cordyceps into your regimen. Most studies referenced were conducted in animal models or in vitro — double-blind placebo-controlled human clinical trials for medicinal mushrooms remain limited.
Sources
Rogers, R.D. The Fungal Pharmacy. North Atlantic Books, 2011.
Rogers, R.D. Medicinal Mushrooms: The Human Clinical Trials. Prairie Deva Press, 2020.
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