Description
| Cordyceps Mushroom |
| Cordyceps sinensis: Chinese Cordyceps fungus (Cordyceps sinesis) Adaptogen, tonic, immune stimulant, restorative. Caterpillar fungus or Winter Worm – Summer Grass, Chinese name is Dong Chong Xia Cao. The Chinese tonic herb Cordyceps gained national publicity in Newsweek a few years back because of its use by Chinese women athletes engaged in breaking world running records. The New York Journal of Medicine reported that Cordyceps has properties similar to Ginseng. It is used to strengthen the body after exhaustion or long term illness. It is traditionally used for impotence, backache, to increase sperm production and to increase blood production. In China, Cordyceps is used medically to regulate and support the gonads and as a lung and kidney tonic. It is used specifically for excess tiredness, chronic cough and asthma, impotence, debility, anemia, to build the bone marrow and reduce excess phlegm. The clinical studies done on Cordyceps in China have been numerous and remarkable, indicating the fungus can improve liver functions, reduce cholesterol, adjust protein metabolism, improve immune functions, inhibit lung carcinoma and has a therapeutic value in the treatment of aging disorders including loss of sexual drive. Pereira (1843) reported in the New York Journal of Medicine that C. sinensis has properties similar to those of ginseng, being used to strengthen and rebuild the body after exhaustion or long-term illness. It was also used traditionally for impotence, neurasthenia, backache (Huang, 1993) and as an antidote for “opium poisoning” (Uphof 1968). |
