Updated
King oyster
A thick-stemmed oyster relative grown for its texture. One of the richest dietary sources of ergothioneine.
Being tested now
Where it stands: 1 registered trial in people, which has not reported; 1 randomised trial, published in 2022.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blood sugar | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Cholesterol and lipids | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Immune function | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
Commonly taken for immune function, blood sugar, cholesterol and lipids. 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.
Every registered study that names it
From ClinicalTrials.gov, filtered to studies that name Pleurotus eryngii 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT05446610 | Investigating Effects in Intestinal Permeability of Rich in Beta-glucans Pleurotus Eryngii Mushrooms Fermentat | Healthy | 10 | Completed | — | — |
The compounds the research names
Formula and mass from PubChem. Naming a compound is not a claim that it does anything in a person.
C9H15N3O2S
C18H32O16
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
Mild and sweet, with the thickest stem of any cultivated mushroom.
Sliced into rounds and scored, it is the closest thing in the vegetable world to a scallop; cut lengthways it takes a hard sear like a steak.
Where it has been recorded, and when it fruits
1,592 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.
| Spain | 654 | |
| Finland | 233 | |
| France | 142 | |
| Switzerland | 106 | |
| Italy | 92 | |
| Netherlands | 74 | |
| Israel | 72 | |
| United States | 36 | |
| Hungary | 31 | |
| Ukraine | 20 | |
| Austria | 18 | |
| Greece | 15 |
Most records fall in Oct. Northern-hemisphere recorders dominate the dataset, so a southern population would not show here.
iNaturalist separately holds 539 research-grade observations of it.
What has been reported going wrong
No voluntary adverse-event report to the US Food and Drug Administration names a product by this name. That is an absence of reports, not a demonstration of safety: these are the products least likely to be reported on, because nobody is required to.
The newest randomised trials and reviews
Indexed in Europe PMC. Titles and journals only — follow the link to read the paper where the publisher allows it.
| Year | Study | Journal | Kind | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Pleurotus eryngii improves postprandial glycaemia, hunger and fullness perception, and enhances ghrelin suppression in p | Pharmacol Res | Randomised trial | 18 |