Updated
Tremella
A translucent white jelly fungus, parasitic on other fungi in hardwood. A dessert ingredient in China, and now a cosmetic humectant.
Being tested now
Where it stands: 1 registered trial in people, which has not reported; 1 randomised trial, published in 2018.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Memory and focus | Being tested now | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Immune function | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
| Skin | Laboratory work | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | yes |
Commonly taken for immune function, skin. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
600mg | Effects of Tremella Fuciformis on Improvement in Cognitive-Bio-Markers of Cognit | Healthy Adults With Subjective Memory Complaints | 75 |
1200mg | Effects of Tremella Fuciformis on Improvement in Cognitive-Bio-Markers of Cognit | Healthy Adults With Subjective Memory Complaints | 75 |
Every registered study that names it
From ClinicalTrials.gov, filtered to studies that name Tremella fuciformis 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT02377024 | Effects of Tremella Fuciformis on Improvement in Cognitive-Bio-Markers of Cognitive Functions | Healthy Adults With Subjective Memory Complaints | 75 | Completed | — | 600mg, 1200mg |
The compounds the research names
Formula and mass from PubChem. Naming a compound is not a claim that it does anything in a person.
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
Virtually none — it takes on whatever it is cooked in.
Soaked until it swells several times over, then simmered in sweet soup with rock sugar, goji and lotus seed. It is a texture ingredient: crisp and slippery at once.
Where it has been recorded, and when it fruits
12,029 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.
| Australia | 5,867 | |
| United States | 4,329 | |
| New Zealand | 432 | |
| Mexico | 187 | |
| Brazil | 160 | |
| India | 122 | |
| Costa Rica | 109 | |
| Colombia | 100 | |
| Japan | 85 | |
| EC | 60 | |
| PA | 46 | |
| South Africa | 44 |
Most records fall in Jun. Northern-hemisphere recorders dominate the dataset, so a southern population would not show here.
iNaturalist separately holds 12,808 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Efficacy and Safety of Tremella fuciformis in Individuals with Subjective Cognitive Impairment: A Randomized Controlled | J Med Food | Randomised trial | 15 |