Updated
Chaga
A black, cracked sterile conk on living birch, mostly in boreal forest. It takes decades to form, which makes wild harvest a real conservation question.
Being tested now
Where it stands: 3 registered trials in people, none of which has reported a result.
What it is taken for
One tile per use. The line under each is how far the evidence for that use actually got, counted rather than argued.
What it has been tried for, and how far that has got
One row per use. The label is counted rather than argued — it is set by how many randomised trials and posted results exist for that use, and nothing else. How that is worked out.
| Use | How far it has got | Trials | With a result | Randomised, published | Reviews | Commonly taken for it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cancer, supportive and adjuvant | Being tested now | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Mood and anxiety | Being tested now | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Sleep | Being tested now | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — |
| Blood sugar | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Gut and microbiome | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Immune function | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Inflammation | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
Commonly taken for immune function, blood sugar, gut and microbiome, inflammation. The work there is still laboratory and animal work — often a great deal of it — and the step into a trial in people has not been taken yet.
The doses the protocols actually specify
Taken verbatim from the intervention description each trial filed. These are not recommendations and they are not comparable to each other: some are a whole-mushroom powder, some a purified fraction.
| Dose as filed | Study | Condition | People |
|---|---|---|---|
1mg | Mood and Cognitive Effects of Psilocybin in Healthy Participants | Mood Disturbance, Mood Change | — |
2 capsule | Rapid Response of Stem Cells and Immune Cells for Efficacy | Stem Cell Surveillance | 24 |
Every registered study that names it
From ClinicalTrials.gov, filtered to studies that name Inonotus obliquus or a synonym in the title, summary or intervention. Studies that have posted results come first.
| Register | Study | Condition | People | Status | Result posted | Dose in the protocol |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT05508529 | Natural Modulators of Immune Function and Mood one ingredient in a multi-herb preparation | Stress | 120 | Completed | — | — |
| NCT05252598 | Mood and Cognitive Effects of Psilocybin in Healthy Participants | Mood Disturbance, Mood Change | — | Withdrawn | — | 1mg |
| NCT04821258 | Effect of the Nutraceutical "MICODIGEST 2.0" on the Complications After Surgery for Colorectal Cancer | Colorectal Cancer, Surgery--Complications | 48 | Completed | — | — |
| NCT07127705 | Rapid Response of Stem Cells and Immune Cells for Efficacy | Stem Cell Surveillance | 24 | Recruiting | — | 2 capsule |
The compounds the research names
Formula and mass from PubChem. Naming a compound is not a claim that it does anything in a person.
C30H48O3
C30H50O2
C18H10N2O4
What it looks like in the field
Research-grade observations, each by a different photographer. Every one links to the record it came from.
In the kitchen
Dark, faintly vanilla, closer to a weak coffee than to a mushroom.
Not eaten. Chunks of the conk are simmered, or ground and steeped, to make a tea; the same piece is often re-used several times.
Harvesting takes decades of a birch's life to replace. Buy cultivated or responsibly wild-harvested, or leave it on the tree.
Where it has been recorded, and when it fruits
25,907 verified occurrence records with coordinates, from GBIF. This is where people have recorded it, which follows where recorders live as much as where the fungus grows — read the shape, not the ranking.
| Sweden | 7,715 | |
| Finland | 3,994 | |
| United States | 2,461 | |
| Russia | 2,358 | |
| Canada | 2,266 | |
| Norway | 2,088 | |
| Netherlands | 1,495 | |
| Denmark | 767 | |
| Germany | 650 | |
| Poland | 512 | |
| Estonia | 413 | |
| United Kingdom | 307 |
Most records fall in Sep. Northern-hemisphere recorders dominate the dataset, so a southern population would not show here.
iNaturalist separately holds 10,733 research-grade observations of it.
What has been reported going wrong
8 voluntary reports to the US Food and Drug Administration name a product by this mushroom's name. A report is someone saying something happened after taking something. It is not a finding that the product caused it, the FDA says so itself, and nobody knows how many people took the product without reporting anything.
| Abdominal Pain | 1 |
| Convulsion | 1 |
| Chest Pain | 1 |
| Chills | 1 |
| Diarrhoea | 1 |
| Discomfort | 1 |
| Gynaecomastia | 1 |
| Hallucination | 1 |
| Headache | 1 |
| Hepatic Enzyme Increased | 1 |
| Hepatomegaly | 1 |
| Inflammation | 1 |
| Other Serious or Important Medical Event | 3 |
| Other Serious Outcome | 2 |
| Disability | 1 |
| Hospitalization | 1 |
| Other Outcome | 1 |
| Visited Emergency Room | 1 |
| Visited a Health Care Provider | 1 |