Is Lingzhi the King Of Herbs?

Ganoderma Lucidum, known in China as Lingzhi or Reishi in Japan and Yeongji in Korean is a type of mushroom that until recently, was a rare herb and only available to those rich and powerful. In nature, it lives mainly on dried trunks or stumps of trees such as maple, plum, guercus serrata or pasonia trees. Even then, only 2 or 3 out of 10,000 of such aged tree will have Lingzhi growing, therefore it is very scarce.

The oldest Chinese Medical text known today is the "Shen Nong's Herbal Classic", which is known in Japan as " Shinnoh Honsohkyo". This herbal medicine book classifies 365 species into three categories:

* Superior: Herbs which are effective for multiple diseases and mostly responsible for maintaining and restoring the body balance. They have almost no unfavorable side effects, thus also called God's Herbs.

* Average: These are herbs mainly used as tonics and boosters, but their consumption must not be prolonged.

* Fair: Herbs in this category are taken as a remedy for certain ailments only and taken in small doses.

Treatments using herbs in fair and average category have be monitored carefully and should not be taken continuously. In the superior category, these herbs can be taken in any doses and continuously without unfavorable side effects. Amongst the Superior Herbs, Lingzhi is ranked number one, and was therefore the most exalted medicine in ancient times, thus it is also called" the King of Herbs". For centuries Lingzhi / Reishi is known to be a medicine that will grant you eternal youth and longevity.

Due to its medicinal properties and its rarity, many studies were carried out to cultivate Lingzhi / Reishi. With the success in cultivating Lingzhi, Lingzhi is now more readily available to us to use to maintain our health or treat illnesses. Scientists can now make more research to understand it's medicinal properties. One of the success is that Lingzhi is found to be effective in fighting against cancer, though many modern medicine professionals still discounted it, preferring the use of drugs and chemotherapy which have been shown to have many bad side effects.

Ganoderma Lucidum ( Lingzhi / Reishi ) are now used in many forms and are produced in several ways to extract the best medicinal properties. In it's pure powder form, it is still quite expensive, about 30 cents per capsule and is usually taken 2 to 4 capsules per day for health maintenance. The less expensive method is consuming coffee, tea and other beverages which contains Ganoderma or Lingzhiin it. Some of these are now popularly known as Healthy Coffee or Lingzhi Coffee.

Thousands now have reaped the benefit of drinking such coffee, feeling less tired, more energetic with much less caffeine than the normal coffee that they had before. Treatment using Ganoderma Lucidum is also called by some as Ganotherapy.

There have been numerous testimonials and studies showing the excellent medicinal properties of Lingzhi, which is also known as Ganoderma Lucidum, Reishi or Yeongji which confirms that it is indeed The King of Herbs.