Chaga - " King of Herbs"

Chaga, (Inonotus obliquus), also known as cinder conk, is a fungus in Hymenochaetaceae family. It is a parasitic fungus on Birch and other trees. The sterile conk is irregularly formed and has the appearance of burnt charcoal. The fertile fruitbody can be found very rarely as a resupinate (crustose) fungus on or near the clinker, usually appearing after the host tree is completely dead. I. obliquus grows in birch forests of Russia, Korea, Eastern Europe, Northern areas of the United States and in the North Carolina mountains. The Chaga mushroom is sold as a medicinal mushroom in the health supplement industry.

Contents [hide]
1 Medicinal use
2 Preparation
3 Research
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Medicinal use
Since the 16th century, there are records of chaga mushroom being used in folk medicine and the botanical medicine of the Eastern European countries as a remedy for cancer, gastritis, ulcers, and tuberculosis of the bones.[citation needed] In 1958, scientific studies in Finland and Russia found Chaga provided an epochal effect in breast cancer, liver cancer,uterine cancer, and gastric cancer, as well as in hypertension and diabetes.[citation needed] Herbalist David Winston maintains that it is the strongest anti-cancer medicinal mushroom.[1]. Russian Literature Nobel Prize laureate Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote two pages on the medicinal use and value of chaga in his famous book on his life in the Gulag "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich".