Vigna L., Morelli F., Agnelli G.M., Napolitano F., Ratto D., Occhinegro A., Di Iorio C., Savino E., Girometta C., Brandalise F., Rossi P. Hericium erinaceus Improves Mood and Sleep Disorders in Patients Affected by Overweight or Obesity: Could Circulating Pro-BDNF and BDNF Be Potential Biomarkers? Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. 2019;2019:7861297.
Rationale
Depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance frequently co-occur with overweight and obesity; the authors tested whether H. erinaceus mycelium affects these symptoms and measured circulating pro-BDNF and BDNF — a rare mechanistic datapoint in a human mushroom trial.
Methods
An open-label pilot: 77 participants with BMI ≥ 25 took H. erinaceus mycelium 3 g/day for 8 weeks. Depression, anxiety and sleep-quality scales plus circulating pro-BDNF/BDNF were measured before and after.
Results
Depression, anxiety and sleep scores improved during intake; circulating pro-BDNF and BDNF levels rose.
Conclusions
Symptomatic improvement alongside a neurotrophin-family signal — a plausible-mechanism datapoint for the species in a metabolically compromised group.
Worth noting
Open-label, no placebo: the mood improvements cannot be separated from expectation and regression to the mean. The pro-BDNF/BDNF rise is the more interesting output — human biomarker data of this kind for lion's mane are rare. A controlled trial in this population is the obvious next step.