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04.02.2025

Maitake is a PPAR-delta agonist - just like cardarine

Maitake, the edible and medicinal mushroom officially called Grifola frondosa, contains substances that have approximately the same biological effects as the obscure doping agent cardarine - which our well-informed readers may also know as GW-501516. But is this effect strong enough to be interesting for athletes?

Study
This web post is based on a series of in vitro and animal studies that appeared in 2018 in Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry. These were carried out by researchers from the Japanese company Hokuto, a producer of edible mushrooms. This means that you should consider this research as 'sponsored'.

The Japanese used an extract of maitake that they had made themselves. The process was more intensive than that of extracts we normally write about. The researchers first extracted the bioactive substances from the mushroom with ethanol, removed the ethanol and then extracted a fraction from the extract with ethyl acetate.

The researchers carried out their experiments with that fraction. We are talking about an extract of 1:2666.

In their animal studies, the Japanese used mice as laboratory animals. If the mice had been adult humans, they would have received roughly 2 grams of extract daily throughout the day.

However, the researchers achieved the most telling results in animal studies in which they used twice this dose. The Japanese write relatively little about these tests in their article. We mainly obtained the details about those experiments from the appendices of the publication.

Results
The Japanese modified human cells in such a way that they gave off light when substances interacted with the cells' PPAR-delta receptor. Through that receptor, cells 'see' fatty acids and screws transport their fatty acid combustion upwards. This mainly happens in the muscles.

The Japanese discovered that maitake extract [GFE] activated the PPAR delta. The higher the concentration, the greater the activation. The publication does not make it clear exactly which substances in maitake extract interact with PPAR delta.

During the 12 weeks of the trial, supplementation with maitake [GFE] at the high dose slowed down body weight gain. The figure above refers to mice that were fattened.

At the high dose, the muscles grew a little and the maitake extract inhibited the growth of fatty tissues.

Supplementation inhibited the increase in glucose levels after glucose administration. You can see this above.

In the muscles of the mice, the activity of genes involved in the conversion of fats and other nutrients into energy increased even at the lower dose of extract. This suggests that the tried-and-tested maitake extract may also improve sports performance. However, the Japanese have not studied whether this is really the case.

Maitake extract not only interacted with the PPAR delta, but also via AMPK. You can see this above. In the liver of the test animals, maitake also interacted via PPAR-gamma.

Conclusion
"These results suggest that Grifola frondosa is a novel functional food that may prevent life-style related diseases like obesity and diabetes, and that these beneficial effects are likely to be mediated through the activation of PPAR-delta and a PPAR-delta-independent insulin signaling pathway," the Japanese summarize.

Source:
Biosci Biotechnol Biochem. 2018 Sep;82(9):1550-9.

More:
Maitake & other medicinal mushrooms inhibit triple-negative breast cancer 13.08.2024
Eat maitake & other mushrooms and reduce your risk of prostate cancer 04.10.2021
Glucans from maitake & other mushrooms protect against virus infections 29.02.2020

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