Teemu Arina dives into the world of Functional Mushrooms with Maximilian Endter, co-founder of Smaints.

Maximilian's passion is to explore the potential of human beings. As a biohacker, mycologist and the co-founder of Smaints, he has made it his mission to combine the ancient teachings of traditional medicine with the modern findings of science - and to share it with the world.

This not only manifested in the form of products loved by thousands of people, but also practical ideas for reaching your highest potential. Max's personal journey to optimal gut health 8 years ago led him not only to the incredible effects of functional mushrooms, but also to discovering everyday biohacks with the greatest possible leverage.

This conversation was recorded in April 2024.

Visit https://smaints.de/ and follow @smaints_mushrooms on Instagram to learn more!

Check https://biohackersummit.com for upcoming events & tickets!

Devices, supplements, guides, books & quality online courses for supporting your health & performance: https://biohackercenter.com

Key moments and takeaways:

00:00 Introduction by Teemu Arina

01:30 Maximilian's background and the story behind Smaints

04:34 What Smaints stands for

06:11 About Yaks and Cordyceps

08:27 The first kingdom on Earth was the Mushroom Kingdom

09:32 The key pathways affected by several popular fungi

12:31 Agaricus Blazei vs. Hashimoto's Disease, Cancer and Blood Sugar

15:03 Oxalates, Antioxidants, Selenium, Red-Belted Conk

16:44 Why the origin of your mushroom products is so important

17:25 The powers of Reishi

20:52 What is Maximilian's favourite Functional Mushroom and why?

25:03 A mushroom that supports Sedentary Cognitive Work

26:19 Certain fungi may have effects which haven't been fully studied yet

27:17 More powerful mushroom protips from Maximilian

28:37 Maitake vs. drugs in Fertility Treatments

29:58 Coprinus Paleotropicus and Blood Sugar

31:13 Birch Polypore and Skin Health

31:58 Paul Stamets, Turkey Tail and the European Market

33:23 Oyster Mushrooms are actually Functional Mushrooms

34:18 Different extraction methods for mushroom products

35:06 Why vegetable glycerin extracts are interesting

36:34 The benefits of triple extraction

38:35 Thoughts behind Smaints products and mushroom use in everyday life

41:25 Visit https://smaints.de for more information (also available in English)

42:15 Availability of lab certificates

43:06 Smaints at the Biohacker Summit 10-year Anniversary (July 2-3, 2024)

Music.

Hi, this is Teemu Arina from Biohacker's Podcast. Today I'm talking to Maximilian

Endter and he's from Germany.

He's an avid biohacker who turned into a mushroom enthusiast,

those functional mushroom types.

And we both share the fascination for the mushroom kingdom.

And he has some pretty unique angles at which he looks at these functional mushrooms.

Also, I think he's the only dude

who I've met recently who likes to use glycerin extracts of mushrooms.

I personally stumbled upon using vegetable glycerin as an extraction method

probably a decade ago when I was making my own extracts.

So a lot of people use alcohol and water extracts. The issue with alcohol is

obviously if you don't want to use any alcohol and vegetable glycerin is probably

one of the most effective means to do that. It's a sugar alcohol.

It's also kind of a natural sweetener in that sense. And I've used it to extract

a bunch of different things, not just mushrooms, but also adaptogens.

But anyway, this guy is bright. I'm very happy to talk to him. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. I'm very happy to be here and I've looked forward to it for a long time.

Awesome why don't you share the story of how you got into mushrooms in the first place,

that's a little bit of a story my co-founder and and

i we know each other since few times then our ways left each other and we met

again after our university time and then was the decision what are we doing

with our life and we didn't know yet but what we knew was we should We should do something together,

but we didn't know what.

So we started our first little adventure, founded our first very little company,

and we helped other people in marketing and stuff like this,

but it was not the thing we really wanted.

What was happening right then was we had our studies, we had hobbies,

jobs, and many, many different things, and our to-do lists get longer, longer, longer.

Productivity gets lower lower lower so what

we became was biohackers we

tried to optimize our biology body health

spirit everything we tried also everything

since this day it is seven eight

years ago we start biohacking with the breath all

the nutrition stuff meditation and supplements

also and the funny moment

we came across the mushroom was a very random one

we listened to the podcast from tim ferrist big biohacker

back then I think 2016 and he told the story that he took cordyceps mushroom

we never heard of it before as he said he was lit like a christmas tree which

we found really confusing and funny also because we thought about he's lit like

a Christmas trees is legal,

where does it come from and what does it do?

And what we saw back then it was.

7 000 studies I think now we

have 50 000 studies for many many different functional

mushrooms to 600 medicinal things

you can do with them which is pretty awesome.

And then we thought why there is not a product we would.

Like to use because there were many many capsules from

china where you don't know really what is in there how

is the quality and stuff like this then there

were some not so good tasting stuff on the market and

we thought maybe that there should be a brand that encapsulates magic

the mushrooms have not magic mushrooms functional mushrooms

in like a very very good way

and what we came across was that mushrooms were

used on the planets like forever and

only in europe it's kind of like people forget

about it but in china they use it since 5

000 years south america also like

millennia and they talk about their mushrooms

like they are the small saints so they

think they are holy and we when we

talk about mushrooms some people say mushroom doesn't

taste that good or they are toxic or yeah

they don't think good about them and we want to bring back that positive

picture of mushrooms that's why we call our

company smains it stands for small saints and

that's the story how we came across them and since seven years there

we are very hooked into the kingdom yeah absolutely

the aztecs knew what they were talking about of course the small saints some

are connecting that to some researchers to the psychedelic type of mushrooms

people very often mistake to functional mushrooms and maybe expect similar functionalities

but what is the big difference here with functional or medicinal These are mushrooms.

And these psychedelic ones,

it's not just the compounds and effects, but also the way it grows.

Most of these functional mushrooms, they grow on trees instead of on the ground,

and they are so-called polypore mushrooms. The exception is...

The cordyceps that you mentioned, I mean, there is many exceptions,

of course, but from the most popular ones, that this one is a parasite to insects.

And this grows in Tibetan plateau.

And it's an interesting mushroom because it infects the nervous system of ants

and starts to control them like zombies, moving them to the highest point where

they will get paralyzed, fertilized, rooted,

and then there is a mushroom popping out from the forehead of the ant where

it drops its pollen and spores.

Then what can easily happen is just one infected ant can destroy a whole ant colony.

I've also read that yaks do eat them in mating season.

Why didn't you expand a little bit on this cordyceps?

What kind of mushroom is that and why does it have an effect on humans?

Why are we not that far from yaks eating

yeah that's a really cool story the legend says

that people saw this mushroom

because the yaks kicked down in the ground and kind

of got wild in the mating season and

it's funny because it's also enhancing testosterone sexual

hormones and is like aphrodisiacum it's

the same effect on humans so to speak and

this is the mushroom that got us hooked into the

whole kingdom because as biohackers we want to have more energy more

resilience more power and so on and

studies show it is doing exactly this you see that the atp production in the

cells is higher which is our true source of energy in the body you also see

that people have more oxygen in the blood there's a parameter called bo2 max

you can measure it and like four

weeks to eight weeks, when you take the mushroom,

you see people have more oxygen in the blood. In sports, they can have more endurance.

Also, they have more strength.

And for sports people, so to say, it's a really interesting mushroom because

it's like doping, so to speak.

And it's not on the doping list anywhere but for horses.

So in horse races, it is forbidden.

For humans, it's possible to take it. and some sportsmen use it.

So 1993, I think, the team of Chinese women in sprinting, they had many records,

world records, and they win.

The championship and they asked the trainer the

coach how did you do this because sometimes they

think they do doping so he said they used cordyceps so it got really big into

the whole fitness industry the mushroom and it's pretty known and really crazy

mushroom so what you've spoken about in the second part of your question is

i think the most fascinating fact about mushrooms.

Why does a mushroom work in the human body or in animal bodies, so to speak?

Because that's exactly the question I had the whole time when I started digging

into the mushrooms and they work against blood pressure, they work against whatever

problems there are on the planet. How is it possible?

And there's this really, really cool theory that the first kingdom on the planet

was the mushroom kingdom.

So mushrooms were here before everything else.

And they made small compounds out of the big organic compounds so that other species can evolve.

We share, like many other species on the planet, DNA with mushrooms.

And we share pretty much DNA with them.

We are like more mushrooms than animals, if you compare it.

And that's why mushrooms work in a very other way than plant compounds or anything else comparable.

We are mushrooms. If we take it like this, and that's why we get some,

I also say it's like a software upgrade for our immune system.

If it's too overactive, for example, the mushroom can show, hey, this is our blueprint.

Go back to homeostasis.

And there's a very, very big intelligence in the mushrooms we can use because we share DNA.

And that's why they have superpowers we can use.

Yeah, it's interesting that we are genetically very close and there's some key

pathways that many of these functional mushrooms do affect.

So while it breaks down a functional mushroom and its compounds,

you have polysaccharides where the key one is beta-glucans that has immune system

modulating effects, especially in the gut.

It increases the production of macrophages, so the cell eaters,

and also natural killer cells that activates the immune system in that way.

It also has three terpenoids, for example, in Reishi that are anti-inflammatory

and anti-viral and anti-cancer properties.

And then you have secondary metabolites where you have a bunch of terpenoids

and steroids and alkaloids that have all kinds of effects from antioxidants to anti-inflammation.

One of the key pathways is NFKB. is critical in regulating immune system response.

And many of these mushroom compounds do inhibit NF-kappa and reduce inflammation that way.

And one interesting thing that I find is that it also affects proteins like

cytochrome C in mitochondria.

So there's this mitochondria-mediated induction of apoptosis in cancer cells, which is interesting.

It's kind of like, if you look at it, it's actually a hormetic stressor.

So it's irritating to the system, like the compounds, to a level where it makes

your body just function better in a sense.

There is other pathways as well that these mushrooms modulate,

MAPK, for example, or JAK stat pathway.

Those are also immune system related and cell growth related pathways.

If you look at, for example, cordyceps has cordycepin, and that inhibits the

production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6 and TNF-alpha.

And one of the kind of key pathways that operates here is NFKB.

So it's a really central effect here, so to say. And I mean,

cordycepin is interesting because it's quite similar to adenosine.

Another compound that a lot of people consume is caffeine that blocks adenosine receptors.

Cordycepin can do the same, and the result is increased alertness.

But what cordycepin also does, there seems to be improved blood.

There's cardiovascular effects, so it improves oxygen intake.

And one interesting thing about cardiovascular health, specifically on cortisol

is that it reduces platelet aggregation, so blood cells don't clump together when you use it,

so it prevents formation of blood clots and in that way, it also improves blood

flow and it also has effects on blood cholesterol levels.

These are very interesting compounds and there's different compounds in different mushrooms.

Now, one mushroom that you have on your product line is Agaricus blazei.

Most people know Cordyceps, Reishi, Shiitake, Chaga, all of these.

Why do you have Agaricus blazei and why is that such a cool mushroom?

Yeah, that's a very special one. You said not that much known because it's basically

from South America and all the healing tradition is more in China and Asian countries.

But what's very special with this mushroom is it has the most potent effect

on the immune system. It's the extract.

It's also with chaga. We developed this with Dr.

Simone Koch, and she is an expert for Hashimoto's disease.

And this mushroom has some very interesting studies concerning autoimmune disease,

Hashimoto's, and also thyroid stuff.

So that's the main point we are using it in our immune product because it's

one of the most potent immune balancing and stimulating mushrooms.

And you need that kind of firepower, so to speak, in the immune system for these

heavy things like autoimmune disease, also cancer.

Cancer, it is used in South America in the therapeutics while people get chemotherapy.

Because it's great for the immune system, that it brings the immune system back

because most people die of the side effects of the chemotherapy because the

immune system is killed.

And this mushroom is so potent for the immune system, it brings it back.

So they have much, much less side effects there because they use this mushroom

and we use this immune power for regulating immune system, them also for allergies,

very good and for stuff like this,

but it's your favorite mushroom because of another thing it does, right?

Yeah. One thing that I noticed about it is it's very potent blood sugar regulator.

I have a friend who has diabetes and she told.

Out of all the mushrooms that she has used, Agaricus blazei basically completely

baselines her blood sugar levels.

And that's a really interesting effect. There are some natural compounds there

that do influence insulin sensitivity and glucose metabolism.

And yeah, it's not very well known, but most of the effects that are studied

on functional mushrooms are in there.

It does have beta-glucans, for example.

That's a type of soluble fiber, which also reduces LDL cholesterol.

So if I was having an unhealthy lifestyle or I would have, let's say,

a very high saturated fat diet, oxalate mushrooms are great because of the way

it also affects cholesterol.

To me, what is interesting about it is also some of the antioxidants in these

mushrooms that help deal with oxidative stress.

And my knowledge also contains some selenium that people are deficient of.

So that's a cool thing, which also has a role in the immune system as well as a mineral.

But there is also hepatoprotective effects on many of these functional mushrooms.

This is not on the market, at least easily available, but I think it's called

the red-belted conch mushroom.

That one is very potent on dealing with liver-related issues.

I could imagine you could take these with or after alcohol and might have hepatoprotective effects.

I know that's one of those things. For example, reishi potentially does.

It's kind of anti-hangover because of the liver functionality.

But the Alkidecus plaza is great for that blood sugar regulation thing.

And it's South American, but you have actually a European version of that, right?

We cultivate all our mushrooms in Europe. So we also use different species of

this mushroom, for example, from Reishi, there are, I don't know, 50,

100 specific ones in German, it's the Glänzender Lackporling,

very interesting names in German language for these mushrooms,

or in China, there's lingzhi.

In Japan, it's reishi and so on. And we can use all of them combined and cultivate

them in a very, very potent way, which is very important, organic.

So mushrooms catch everything, which is heavy metals or whatever is there and try to decompose them.

So it's very, very important where the mushrooms are coming from.

As we started with our mushroom love back in

the day we saw that many stuff is coming out of

china and you have some problematic compounds in

there we don't want yeah talking about reishi or lingzhi that's one of the most

studied mushroom also one of the most appreciated mushrooms actually in the

chinese medicine system not everything coming from chinese medicine is solid

but many are and And Reishi is definitely one of those.

One of its key mechanisms is actually the inhibition of nuclear factor kappa or NFKB pathway.

Reishi has triterpenoids and polysaccharides and other compounds that inhibit that pathway.

And it also affects the cytochrome P450 enzymes.

That's the liver, especially when it comes to drug metabolism and synthesis

of cholesterol, steroids and other lipids.

Cytochrome B450 is key and it supports those enzymes, but there is no cross

interaction with pharmaceuticals. That's why it also makes it very safe to use, I would say.

That's one of those things that you can also.

Support sleep in the evening. Cordyceps is more a morning thing that you mentioned

earlier with alertness.

I also see Chaga is kind of an endurance thing.

If you want to, because of its high antioxidant capacity, if you do something

which is potentially causing oxidative damage, Chaga is awesome.

And Reishi is great for recovery and that kind of overnight immune system support.

Port it's a really cool mushroom and there

is different forms and types of mushrooms also when

it comes to reishi when you go to china or thailand even

wherever in asia you find a lot of different

varieties of lingzhi and I found ganoderma lucidum it's the latin name from

all different place of the world all the way from finland to recently in an

island in thailand which I'm very proud of, that I like running into this mushroom.

It's quite rare, actually, outside of cultivation.

And what is striking about it is it's like really bright color,

red, especially on the peripheries.

And these mushrooms have slightly different compounds that are aggregated into

different parts of the mushroom.

And most of the health benefits are actually kind of almost skin layer of that mushroom.

When the mushroom grows inside a tree, It forms these kind of like thicker mycelium

and then it sprouts out from the mushroom to produce that so-called fruiting body.

And the stuff that grows normally inside trees, like the way it's cultivated, is to produce that.

There is actually more surface area to extract the health benefits of it when

you have more surface area compared to a fruiting body.

So actually in a cultivating situation you can produce more of the active compound

than in wild nature, but at the same time wild nature provides the stimulus

for the mushrooms to produce those compounds that we seek.

There's different techniques to kind of of stress the mushroom,

so it produces more of it.

And my understanding of cordyceps cultivation is that they actually make the

mushroom kind of fight each other a little bit, so it produces more cordyceps.

So you can kind of see these compounds as part of the mushroom's own immune

system that separates it from the outside world, which is a chemical-based immune system.

And the more it is under stress from the environment, the more of these compounds

will be produced for its own protective reasons.

And then in the human body, lo and behold, we have the pathways where it can work with school.

Out of all these mushrooms, which one is your favorite? In terms of more functional

mushrooms, what do you like yourself?

The most favorite mushroom for me is lion's mane.

It's also a very crazy looking mushroom. It looks like a lion's mane.

It has some white lines lying down.

And it's also called pom-pom. it looks like it's

a really cool looking mushroom you can google it and this

mushroom is very special because it has

two big areas of superpowers and

the first superpower I like the most is it has compounds that regenerates brain

cells and nerve cells so it's hiring a nerve growth factor and bdnf it's like

rebuilding structures in the brain that got damaged it's neuroprotective and does studies.

Which is very funny and they they measured the iq of

people beforehand and after the intake of

lion's mane and the people got more intelligent

which is cool I think and it's a brain power

mushroom and that's the one area and the second area which

is very much connected with this is our

gut this mushroom has some really cool

immune system benefits and the most important one

from this mushroom is it is repairing the gut

lining it has also hundreds

thousands of years in traditional chinese medicine they use

it for every kind of skin or

barrier in the body there are mucous membranes in the

body every mucous membrane not only in

the gut also in the stomach so if people have problems with

stomach up from the down to after every

mucous membrane is kind of

repaired and made more wet by this mushroom

which is crucial for the functioning of mucous membranes

and that makes it very powerful I myself had some

issues with leaky gut and I tried like the beginning of biohacking very many

different things and this mushroom and other mushrooms were a catalyst for getting

these kind of problems away from me so I like it very much you mentioned it It affects the brain.

So I'll add a little bit of scientific details.

The grain-derived neurotrophic factor is one of those growth factors that influence

the survival and differentiation of neuronal cells.

And it's vital for long-term memory and thinking processes.

And lion's mane enhances the expression of BDNF and thereby supporting neuroplasticity

and cognitive functions in learning and memory.

And what is interesting about it is you don't really have an immediate effect

from it. It's more like an effect that builds up.

When you keep on using lion's mane, it rejuvenates your brain in a sense.

If you have brain damage, you have stress, lack of sleep, whatever,

it can stimulate that brain-derived neurotrophic factor.

And other effects that I find interesting about it, you mentioned the gut effect.

Of course, there is beta-glucans, and we think of something like inflammatory

or irritable bowel syndrome, IBS.

It exhibits these kind of anti-inflammatory properties, which influence the

production of inflammatory cytokines in the gut.

Technically speaking, it reduces inflammation, and in that way,

you can manage the symptoms and help the body to heal itself.

And one interesting possible effect is here that it might also promote the production of tight muscles.

Junction proteins in the gut that fixes the leaky gut effect.

You kind of reduce the intestinal permeability by using this mushroom.

In a way, Lion's Mane can protect the stomach lining from damage and help the

body to support healing.

But of course, it will be more effective if you combine that with some other

compounds, for example, L-glutamine. You mentioned Tim Ferriss earlier.

I think one of the first things that I learned from him that really worked for

me was to take 5 to 10 grams of L-glutamine after,

let's say, you know, you eat something bad or you get food poisoning or whatever,

you had to use antibiotics or something and you feel horrible,

that can really speed up in the empty stomach the healing of the gut lining,

which is interesting, and these mushrooms can definitely help in that process.

But yeah, I think like this, these mushrooms are great for anyone who does cognitive sedentary work.

Why? Cognitive because these mushrooms have these kind of reindeer neurotrophic factors.

There is these antioxidants, there is anti-inflammatory compounds,

and then there is all those things

that modulate blood sugar and lipid metabolism, so cholesterol values.

If you sit a lot throughout the day, this is one of the best things to add to

your daily beverage, like a cup of coffee or something. and I have used over 10 years now.

Functional mushrooms on a daily basis without a break.

And I do attribute a lot of changes in my health in the last 10 years compared

to 10 years earlier to using these mushrooms regularly.

Like better functioning gut, then also better biomarkers like lipid metabolism.

And then the third thing is, which I think is also key, is less seasonal flus and sickness.

Or if there is something, thing, it will pass very quickly.

So you are kind of more prepared for those moments when your biological organism

gets challenged from the outside.

That's also my favorite mushroom, but I've noticed that there might be effects

from lion's mane to libido.

And there's anecdotal reports on the internet.

I haven't looked into the studies, but there's a lot of people who do complain

that they feel less drive if they use Lion's Mane on a regular basis.

I need to look into it, but I think it's solid that with a lot of these things,

there might be effects that we haven't studied or understood yet.

And cycling them in and out is key. That's why I also don't use the same mushroom every single day.

I'm kind of like cycling them in and out. It works really well for me.

There's days when I'm not having cordyceps at all.

There's days when I'm not having Reishi at all, but it's different times of

the week when I do different things. And that seems to work for me pretty well.

Do you have any other kind of advice or experience that you want to share?

About these wonderful creatures of nature? Yes, there are many the superpowers of mushrooms.

You mentioned before you have a friend that has some problems like diabetes

and things like this. We had the agaricus, which is a very good one.

And there are some mostly unknown functional mushrooms, but they have very,

very cool powers considering diabetes and also the blood sugar.

And the first one, and it's my favorite study

of mushrooms is about maitake and maitake is

the hero of our metabolism it can it

has really an impact on our sugar metabolism

so it showed in studies that it can also

invert the insulin resistances in

the body and optimize sugar intake and that

comes in very handy that's why we have it in the

balance products where we say it's more like

inner balance for you against stress combined with

reishi and also the hormonal balance because reishi has

also the hormonal balancing effects and we

combine it with maitake because there's a really really cool

study about the reproduction function

of women and they had

pcos so they have problems with

their uterus and so what they

used maitake extract against a drug

which is called clomiphene what this drug does

it also can bring the women back to have

children again but with really really

bad side effects like losing your ability to see

or as getting blind and very harsh side

effects and they but they can get women back to fertility to like 97 percent

the maitake extract has done the same thing without any side effect in a very

low dose so So 250mg extract for a study is not enough.

And the maitake can do it like 76% of the time.

And they found out that it is because of the reversing of the insulin resistancy in the uterus.

Also, when the women don't have any diabetes or stuff like this,

they can have an insulin resistancy because of the PCOS.

The mushroom is reversing it, then energy flows and they become fertile again, which is awesome.

Awesome really really cool and I think it's much more cool because you have

the comparison with like a very very harsh drug so that's interesting for people

who want to optimize their blood sugar stuff and so on and there's also a mushroom

people don't know it's called coprinus.

Paleotropicus in german it's shop tintling and it is a very crazy looking mushroom it does not

grow on trees so it's on the ground and it has

a very arrow formed head so to speak

and then it is this head

is turning up and it looks like it's blue

that's why it's called tintling and these

mushrooms have not only some effect on

the blood sugar levels and sugar metabolism but

also some very very good effect on our organ

that is producing insulin also it's on

the the pancreas it's a very special mushroom not

many people know it but it has very very

good effect on the pancreas and that's on insulin

production and on the whole sugar game

and it's pretty unknown interesting i

can share a couple of lesser known effects on

mushrooms as well that a lot of people know it actually

protects the skin against uv rays and

other forms of oxidative stress and the reason might

be because it influences super oxidized dismutase

enzyme activity so SOD that is crucial for breaking down potentially harmful

oxygen molecules now there's another mushroom that works on skin health that

is not very well known it's called the birch polypore the Latin name is Viptoporus petulinus.

This one has all kinds of different effects that could help skin health.

For example, the typical ones that all these mushrooms have is anti-inflammatory,

antimicrobial, antioxidant capacity.

But there's some wound healing benefits from this birch polypore.

And the effect is that this mushroom promotes the activity of fibroblasts.

Those are the cells that are crucial in wound healing and formation of new blood

vessels. And if you want to repair your skin damage, all of that,

like that mushroom, I find it's very interesting.

Now there is also Paul Stamets, one of his favorite mushrooms.

I think two favorite ones that he speaks a lot about is Turkey Tail as one of his top mushrooms.

And it's very rich in PSK, which is polysaccharide K and also polysaccharopeptides, PSP.

And it stimulates the immune system activity. It's a really good immune system modulator.

And another one, which he used to treat his mother's cancer effectively,

I think intravenously, was Agaricon, which is Omitopsis officinalis.

And Agaricon has a lot of antiviral properties, has been studied against different

viral infections, including influenza, smallpox, and so on.

The exact effects are not very well known

but something is happening there

with viral replication where this mushroom

inhibits that effect unfortunately a

lot of these mushrooms which have all these cool effects don't necessarily have

that commercial use in European Union before the year 97 unfortunately some

of these are not available on the European market turkey tail is definitely

one of those mushrooms that actually have to extract it.

Grows in almost every ecosystem. It's quite easy to find, but that is an example

of a mushroom, that although it grows everywhere here, you can't really sell it in European market.

But yeah, oyster mushrooms, those you can eat, those are available everywhere,

has commercial use and very few people know that that's one of the top potent

functional medicinal mushrooms available in a typical supermarket.

And oyster mushrooms are great for immune system

support as well and in

the end a lot of people do use functional mushrooms without knowing

it by just eating those

things or and so on but adding more

of the superheroes of nature into your diet can definitely help prevent issues

or help speed up healing and provide that well-rounded support for your immune

system the way your body is dealing with stress and all the way from the gut, to uterus,

to brain.

Like these have many, many different

effects. And kind of circle back into the best ways to use these.

So a lot of people on the market, they use extracts that are double or triple

extracted with alcohol water, maybe some more advanced processing techniques,

powder to mix in their drinks.

They might use straight powder, which I don't recommend because it doesn't really

have most of the compounds in bioavailable form and are not standardized.

Standardized then there's alcohol extracts but of

course those are challenging in countries where you can drive

in traffic with any amount of alcohol in your

blood you may want to avoid alcohol extracts in that case and that's where the

glycerin extracts are cool and it also adds kind of the sweetness to it it's

one of my favorite herbs to add into my coffee is why don't you talk a little

bit about the vegetable glycerin extracts and why did you choose to go with that one.

It's exactly the thought process we had. We started with our powders,

which were more like a lifestyle product.

Many people drink mushroom coffee or mushroom cacao, and we made some functional

mushroom powders with adaptogens and so on.

And we always thought about what is the most potent way to consume mushrooms

to have more of the benefits.

And of course, we came across the liquid extraction.

Back then we thought there's only the alcohol extracts. And when we tasted them,

we said, okay, that's not for us.

I can't really taste this.

It pretty much tastes like an alcoholic beverage where you have fried mushrooms

in, so you have to like it.

So for us, for our brand, it's always very necessary that there's a good taste,

like a good ritual you have with the product in the morning and so on.

And alcohol is not the best to consume in the morning, for example.

For us liquid extraction was then something we

didn't look into and then

we came across the glycerin extracts and

when we first tasted them I said how is

this possible it tastes like honey and then

we looked into the compounds that are

in there it's crazy so the liquid extracts we

have so potent one tablespoon of it you can

compare with 36 normal mushroom powder

capsules which is pretty much compounds

in there you can't get more mushroom compound in a

bottle like this and it's because we do triple extraction so

we first do that what every extract friend

is doing it's the hot water extraction it's the cheaper

extraction method and you mostly only

get the polysaccharides out of there

so all we talked about the immune system

and stuff like that beta-glucane all these stuff

you get out with hot water extraction and the

fun stuff of the mushrooms we talked about bdlf in

in lion's mane or all the 200 there

are more than I think 300 tryptophanes in

reishi all these are only extractable

with alcohol and we do an alcohol extraction to get all these frayed compounds

out then we have to get rid of the alcohol again and And then we do a third

step and that is the cold water extraction so that you get also the compounds

out of there that are heat sensitive.

And then we have the glycerin and glycerin is a very special compound that can

hold these big amounts of compounds, which are water soluble and fat soluble,

which are extracted with the alcohol.

And then you have a very very potent extract of

the mushroom which holds basically anything

that is in nature in the mushroom but potentiated big

time and the very cool thing is the taste you mentioned

it it's you can get a sweetness into your drinks and

the power of the mushroom and it's without sugar the taste comes

from the glycerin itself and if we use it

in organic form out of sunflower seeds

and it's yeah it was a very cool

moment when we taste the first time the glycerin extract

and it's a very very a hard process to do

but then you have a very potent extract in the end you have a bunch of different

mushroom extracts and you actually combine them and you don't just use mushrooms

you also have some adaptogens in there I need to just share a little bit about

the thought process why you combine certain mushrooms and to then add up the chance.

We thought about the usage of mushrooms. We want to bring it into everyday life.

So it should not be something you have to have a really, really long thought

process. Which mushroom do I take?

When and why? So we made this four categories. We call it four pillars for maximum performance.

And the first one we started with was focus. That's what biohackers are striving for, energy and focus.

In the morning, we want to get things done or we want to have a deeper meditation,

more clarity and stuff like this.

We combined the most potent mushrooms for this endeavor.

It's cordyceps for energy, lion's mane for cocoa.

And we put them into this high-dose extract you can use everywhere or into our powdered product.

That's the mushroom cacao. In the mushroom cacao, you not only have cordyceps,

but other adaptogens as well.

And there are very cool effects. We studied back in our biohacking starting days.

And there is citicoline. And that's a source for our neurotransmitters.

But we use these neurotransmitters to think, use our brain.

And when we use them, we felt with cordyceps together, the cordyceps also enhancing

blood flow to the brain, oxygen to the brain, and you have some cognitive effects.

But combined with the citricoline, we have pretty cool effects, which is long lasting.

You can think faster, so to speak, and it felt more light in the brain.

Many people are deficient in this compound because it's normally in eggs or

animal products, and many people don't eat animal products anymore.

And we use this because we really like the effect of it.

Then there's Ginkgo biloba. And Ginkgo is known for the cognitive enhancement,

the memory enhancement.

It also enhances the blood flow to the brain.

And it also has effect on the breakdown of the neurotransmitters.

It inhibits it so you can reuse the neurotransmitters in the brain for longer time.

And they really have a really cool symbiotic effect with the mushrooms.

We have also vitamin B5, which is known to enhance cognition and a pretty good

taste with organic, very high quality cocoa.

And together, it's also like cocoa is also a little bit enhancing serotonin

and gives a good vibe, so to speak, in the morning, which is another vibe than

most of caffeine beverages, which is more stress to the body.

We want to create this feeling of this light creativity you have to achieve

your dreams. That was the focus of this product.

Wonderful. And if people want to know more about your products,

where can they find more information?

You can find the information on our website. It's smainz.de.

And if you are English speaking, which I think when you hear this one,

You can scroll down and you can have the English version of the website.

If you have any questions, you can write us an email.

We are happy to help you in English language. And you also find us on Instagram.

smaints_mushrooms. We have cool content there about mushrooms.

Wonderful. So S-M-A-I-N-T-S.

Smaints.de. And you can scroll down and get the English version.

And this is a cool company because products are sourced in Europe,

they're manufactured in Europe, and German company, high quality,

high standards, and also you

do have the laboratory certificates for everything you do. It's awesome.

I can recommend everyone to take a look at,

these products. I have a lot of different companies and mushroom products that

I use, and this is definitely one of those, especially the glycerin extracts that I love.

Makes it super easy to use with morning beverages like coffee or cacao even. So check it out.

Yeah, you guys are also going to be in Helsinki, so we have the Biohacker Summit

in Helsinki in July. That's our 10th anniversary.

Last year you were in Amsterdam. It was a big success for you guys.

You launched some products and there's some new products you can launch in Helsinki as well.

If people are interested in witnessing these products themselves first hand

on all these other cool brands that are coming to Biohacker Summit go to biohackersummit.com

and you can find more information.

It's going to be 2nd and 3rd of July. It's like the Burning Man of all the biohacking events.

It's not really a conference, it's a festival. It's really cool.

Looking forward to meeting you there, man.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward. It's awesome events.

In Amsterdam. We are on many events in Germany, some in England and so on,

but this is very, very special and we are very happy to be there again.

Thank you, Maximilian Endter.

That was a good primer to functional mushrooms and their benefits and a couple

of rare ones for people to look into, maybe forage themselves,

maybe try out that glycerin extract on their own little little experiments and

with that I wish you all a very very healthy functional week.

Music.