Bodybuilding.com’s newest line of plant-based supplements features this Birch Chaga Truffle to help boost your mood, immune system, and gut health. This delicious fat free bite of chocolate is sweetened with dates, fortified with linseed (flaxseed) flour for omega 3’s, packed with birch chaga, and finished with Cacao.
Chaga mushroom, scientifically known as inonotus obliquus, is a hardened, irregularly fungus that grows primarily on birch trees (1). It has been used in eastern alternative medicine for centuries to help with inflammation, infections, gut health, and mental fatigue (2). While western scientific research is starting to show that chaga has a wide variety of potentially beneficial compounds such as polyphenols, melanin, triterpenoids, and polysaccharides.
Various in vitro studies demonstrated that polysaccharides could potentially regulate the immune response by exerting a protective effect against oxidative stress and inflammation and may have potential merit as a medicinal food to combat diabetes (3)(4)(5). Various in vivo animal studies, chaga mushroom extract exhibited a potential anticancer activity as well exhibited broad-spectrum antiviral activity (6)(7). In a mice study, administration of chaga extract was found to possibly regulate gut microbiota composition and diversity of healthy gut profile (8). Lastly, in multiple animal studies researchers found that the chaga has great potential to minimize physical fatigue and mental fatigue of exercising mice (9)(10).
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