Chaga
Inonotus obliquus

Part used: Whole, ground mushroom

Sourcing: Bulk herb, tea or tincture

Chaga is a woody fungus that grows on birch trees in northern Scandinavia, Russia and Canada. Like its medicinal mushroom cousins maitake and shiitake, chaga contains immune-enhancing polysaccharides, but its penchant for birch trees gives it an advantage no other fungus has: betulinic acid. This acid, absorbed from the host tree, has strong anti-tumor activity, with virtually no toxicity, Winston says. The combination makes for a powerful herb.

"Many mushrooms are known for their immunopotentiating effect, but it's my belief that chaga is probably one of the strongest, if not the strongest we know about," Winston says.

By today's standards, the Soviet-era research conducted on chaga is considered subpar, but the mushroom's traditional use is compelling. In every single place it grows it's used by indigenous peoples for the same thing, treating cancer. Clinical practitioners today use chaga as part of protocols for treating cancer or other immunodeficiency diseases such as chronic fatigue syndrome and HIV.

"Between what we know about it chemically, what we know about it ethnobotanically and what we know about it to some degree from actually using it, it definitely suggests a very profound immunostimulating and immunopotentiating mushroom," Winston says.