Believe it or not, hypertension is an alarmingly common condition among American adults. It is estimated that about 47%, almost half of the adults in the country, suffer from hypertension and take some type of medication to manage it. This means that more than 115 million Americans need help lowering their blood pressure.
More and more people are looking for natural alternatives to deal with their high blood pressure, and in this search, many come across various natural substances, herbs, or mushrooms that could help with high blood pressure.
Among these possible natural alternatives, we find cordyceps, a functional fungus native to Asia with a long history of therapeutic use due to the wide range of possible benefits it could bring to human health in general and especially to cardiovascular health.
If you want to know a little more about the potential of this fungus, you are in the right place. This article will delve into how cordyceps influence blood pressure and what these mushrooms could contribute to cardiovascular health. Let’s start by answering some common questions.
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Does cordyceps raise blood pressure?
No. In fact, it’s the opposite. Western New York Urology Associates agree that cordyceps may benefit heart health in several ways. While evidence from test tube and animal studies suggest that cordyceps may help lower high blood pressure. Cordyceps could also help fight stress, reduce high blood sugar levels, protect the kidneys from damage caused by drugs such as gentamicin and cyclosporin, and could even reduce the risk of developing cancer.
Interestingly, although cordyceps supplementation may help reduce high blood pressure, evidence suggests that it may also increase blood flow as it works as a vasodilator and also improves metabolic efficiency. This is partly because cordyceps seem to improve physical performance by increasing the body’s VO2 max and ATP production. So, it looks like cordyceps might also boost energy levels similar to some energizing hemp strains or some of the best Delta-8 strains for energy. The difference is that to start noticing the energizing benefits of cordyceps, you usually need to complete at least a couple of weeks of supplementation to give the organic compounds in cordyceps time to build up and start to work.
Another of the well-known benefits that cordyceps could bring to human health is that there is evidence to suggest that these functional mushrooms could improve some cognitive abilities, including learning capacity and memory. It seems that these cognitive-improving qualities of cordyceps, together with some cannabinoids, could increase it even more. For example, while some people still wonder if some cannabis products like CBD gummies help you focus, there are many medical cannabis users who have been enjoying the cognitive-boosting benefits of the dynamic duo that cordyceps with some cannabis strains that promote focus and creativity can offer.
Does cordyceps thin the blood?
Short answer, yes. Taking cordyceps may help reduce blood clotting, especially when taken with other medications that lower blood clotting. Although this may be ideal for some people, it may be dangerous for others. In fact, taking cordyceps may increase the chance of bleeding and bruising in people with bleeding disorders. If you are taking any cordyceps supplementation, it is ideal to stop its use at least two weeks before any surgery since cordyceps could increase the risk of bleeding during the procedure.
Cordyceps for Cardiovascular Health
Cardiovascular health is one of the main areas of action of cordyceps. If there is an organ of the body that needs regularity more than any other, it is the heart. This is why when the heart begins to fail in its regular rhythm, it is undoubtedly a life-alarming red flag. The heart is like a machine that works with electrical impulses to pump blood to different parts of the body, including the brain. When there is abnormal activity in these electrical impulses, a condition known as “cardiac arrhythmia” occurs. When this happens, the heart may not be strong enough to send blood to the parts of the body that need it, which can cause damage to the brain, heart, or other organs.
Among the benefits cordyceps could bring to human health is cordyceps’ innate ability to stabilize heart rhythm and correct cardiac arrhythmia. But this is not all. Among the other potential benefits that cordyceps could bring to cardiovascular health, we find that:
- They could lower high blood pressure.
- Correct cardiac arrhythmia and reduce the time of arrhythmia attacks.
- They protect against attacks of ischemia and cardiovascular hypoxia.
- Improves coronary and cerebral circulation.
- Increases blood flow to coronary vessels.
- Reduces the risk of coronary diseases.
- Reduces coronary vascular resistance.
- Protects against chronic heart failure.
- Reduces total cholesterol, triglycerides, and LDL.
- Reduces blood viscosity and fibrinogen level.
It is important to note that despite all the evidence pointing to the possible cardiovascular benefits that cordyceps might provide, most of this evidence comes from preliminary studies or reviews and cannot be taken as sufficient to make any definitive claims about whether cordyceps are miraculously good for the heart. In the same way, we also do not recommend trying to substitute any type of cardiac treatment or medication for cordyceps without first consulting a specialist since each person’s health is unique and requires specialized attention to determine which is the best treatment to follow according to each condition.
How to use cordyceps
Although humans have been using cordyceps for hundreds of years in traditional Chinese medicine, modern scientific research regarding the ideal dosage or best way to consume these functional mushrooms is still scant. The dose generally used in adults ranges from 3 to 6 grams of cordyceps, with 2 to 4 grams per day being the most recommended dose by experts for up to a continuous year. There are still no studies that shed light on the long-term use of cordyceps for more than the time already mentioned.
Natural cordyceps can be really hard to come by as they grow in a specific region and only at a particular time of the year. Most cordyceps or cordyceps mycelium used to create supplements is lab-grown and can come in a variety of forms. It usually comes in powder form, which can be placed in “00” capsules, generally containing 400mg, or it can also be added directly to drinks and foods to enrich them with the properties of cordyceps. When taken in capsule form, 2 to 3 capsules per day are usually sufficient to obtain the benefits of cordyceps.
If you manage to get the cordyceps fruiting bodies, you can also make them in the form of tea by placing about 6 to 7 fruiting bodies to boil for a few minutes and then lowering the temperature and letting it simmer for about 15 minutes. After this, remove the fruiting bodies and throw them away or save them to cook; add honey or sugar to taste, and you are ready to enjoy your cordyceps tea and ripe all its benefits.
You may also find some products or foodstuffs on the market that already contain cordyceps extract or mixtures of different mushrooms and functional herbs. Today, adaptogenic mushrooms and herbs are enjoying growing popularity, leading to manufacturers making all kinds of products containing extracts from various herbs and functional mushrooms, including cordyceps. So don’t be surprised to find gummies, oils, tinctures, chocolates, or other products that contain cordyceps extract as part of their formulations.
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