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Why Do BIO Liquid Mushroom Extracts Taste Sweet? Do They Contain Sugar?

Why Do BIO Liquid Mushroom Extracts Taste Sweet? Do They Contain Sugar?

In this blog article, Nikolett Szabó, founder and owner of Naja Forest Ltd., the manufacturer of HerbalVet organic medicinal mushroom products, addresses why the product tastes sweet and whether it contains sugar:

The sweet taste of HerbalVet organic liquid mushroom extracts is attributed to pharmaceutical-grade glycerol, which acts as the carrier. Importantly, it contains no sugar at all! Glycerol can be safely consumed by both people and animals with diabetes, as it does not raise blood sugar levels. According to diabetologists, it is the only sweetener accepted for diabetic patients.

Glycerol does not impact blood sugar levels or metabolism.

  • It is commonly used in foods to preserve water content, serve as a solvent, and act as a sweetener.
  • When used as a sugar substitute, it has significantly fewer calories than sugar, though its sweetness is only 60% of that of sugar.
  • Additionally, glycerol does not promote the growth of caries-causing bacteria.

In our products, we use pharmaceutically pure, non-GMO glycerol derived from Hungarian sunflowers as a preservative and homogenizing agent. Like liposomal technology, it facilitates the delivery of active ingredients to the cells. Glycerol’s crucial role is aiding the absorption of active substances through the mouth’s mucous membrane, a feature present in all living cells. It is generally permitted in foods without quantitative restrictions and has no upper intake limit.

Glycerol enhances the absorption of active ingredients to nearly 100%, a level not achievable with capsules. This has been confirmed in a study conducted with Semmelweis University, which also verified the beneficial effects of both glycerol and the mushrooms’ active ingredients. The active compounds are absorbed directly through the oral mucosa and the small intestine, reaching the cells almost immediately.

Our mushroom extracts can be taken alone or mixed with any solid or liquid food. The taste and texture are comparable to honey, although none of our liquid extracts contain honey. They have a pleasant, sweet taste (thanks to glycerol and polysaccharides) and do not taste like mushrooms. Glycerol also protects the active ingredients from heat, ensuring no loss of potency due to the temperature of the food or drink. The active ingredients are efficiently absorbed through the mouth’s mucous membrane, maximizing their utilization.

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Allergy

Allergy

In case of an allergy, unlike humans, where respiratory symptoms dominate, the most common symptoms in dogs are skin-related. The animal incessantly licks, bites, and scratches the affected area, and thus primarily causes the symptoms itself due to itching. So, the leading cause is itching, and as a result of continuous scratching, a variety of symptoms can be observed across the body. These often become secondarily infected, and bacteria or fungi can trigger pus-forming processes. A specific category of skin itching and inflammation is the itching and inflammation of the ear and the skin of the external ear canal.

It sometimes happens that the primary symptom in an allergic dog is respiratory, such as panting, runny nose, or tearfulness. In cats, respiratory symptoms are more common, and asthma can also occur in cats.

What causes it?

The most common cause is the reaction triggered by the saliva entering the body when bitten by an external parasite, the flea. The proteins in the saliva that are repeatedly introduced into the body cause this reaction. Pollen allergy is also common, with grass pollens, but essentially all trees and flowers also come into the crosshairs. Each has its own season. Because our dog runs around “barefoot,” it constantly comes into contact with these dangerous grass pollens, which is why the above-mentioned symptoms often appear on the thin skin between the toes. (Understandable? Not really.)

The next group of allergens is those triggered by food. It is now widely accepted that feeding chicken or chicken meat is the second strongest and most common allergen in dogs. More experienced dog owners already avoid feeding chicken. (Understandable? Not at all.)

The known contact allergies involve direct touch. These are rarer and relatively difficult to trace, usually caused by substances the dog frequently comes into contact with, such as the material of its blanket.

There is also a much rarer anaphylactic reaction based on allergies (e.g., penicillin sensitivity), which I will not address here; the following does not apply to those very rare cases.

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Treatment

Before beginning treatment, we must always rule out the most common cause, which is also the easiest to address: external parasites. There are plenty of effective flea repellents available on the market, and they MUST be used. We don’t proceed further until we are sure about this.

Allergy is a grateful disease. The next step is antihistamine treatment, steroid treatment which suppresses the symptoms, the itching goes away, as a result of the veterinarian’s intervention. Glory. Temporary. It is grateful because we can be sure that the itching and with it the animal will return to the clinic.

Hypoallergenic therapeutic diets also come into the picture, we use ointments on the inflamed skin that our dog should not lick off, which is not as easy to prevent as to advise. Many types of treatments can be applied, but in the case of the underlying disease, we will definitely end up with histamine, which needs to be suppressed.

So what does flea saliva, grass pollen, and chicken meat have to do with histamine, what do they have in common, what is histamine? Histamine is produced by the body itself during inflammatory reactions. So the common factor in the aforementioned causes is that they cause inflammation in the body, which then starts to produce that nasty histamine that we fight against endlessly with the veterinarian.

The story is becoming increasingly convoluted. This is usually where content aiming to enlighten laypeople on the topic reaches—if it gets there at all. However, the key part follows here.

Our dog showing allergic symptoms has its immune system relentlessly provoked by something, to which the immune system responds with inflammation. During this process, an excessive amount of histamine is produced in the body, generally causing itching in various areas. Our dog scratches these spots until hairless, red, thinning areas appear that can easily become secondarily infected and display a variety of inflammatory symptoms, thereby necessitating the use of antibiotics, painkillers, etc.

Of course, you have to defend against constant flea bites, but a ‘barefoot’ dog should be able to cope with grass pollens just as it does with digesting chicken meat, since these have been part of its natural living conditions for millions of years.

An inflammatory reaction is the improper or overactive function of the body’s immune system. It can also be called an autoimmune reaction. Genuine autoimmune diseases are also increasingly being diagnosed independently of allergies.

Incorrect ‘lifestyle’ is behind all of this. Primarily, the dog foods that are fed be blamed for these processes. Various dog foods have not been part of the dog’s natural living conditions for centuries. An average dog food (not the cheapest today contains at least 50% grains. Dogs cannot digest grains. How? Is the majority of the fed food indigestible? No. Dogs are not equipped to digest the more complex starch molecules found in nature, so these are flaked, processed by certain industrial methods into shorter chain compounds, thus becoming ‘excellently’ digestible for dogs. Excellently?!

This is a fundamental lifestyle change. A lack of certain amino acids, lack fats, lack of exercise also contribute, as well as our polluted environment which we city dwellers also partake in, but let me reiterate: fundamentally, the long-term consumption of alien starch, THE industrially processed carbohydrates (carbohydrates: sugar, starch, cellulose) feeding can be blamed for the malfunctioning of the immune system.

Sugars and carbohydrates in the diet of dogs and wolves in the wild occur at a total of 2-4%, but definitely below 10%. They do not eat feedstuff, nor bread, rice, potatoes, or pasta, neither buckwheat, millet, chickpeas, etc. Those particular industrial processes that make otherwise indigestible carbohydrates digestible indeed trigger the immune system as well. The colorful plastic bags of dog food are never bought by the dogs, but always by the owners, with the best intentions.

As a concluding thought, it should be added that if the malfunctioning of the immune system has already developed (“we have triggered it”), a correct diet is generally not enough for recovery. The immune system needs support, and whether we like it or not, a steroid and antihistamine treatment is necessary because we cannot leave the dog with uncontrollable itching, which would drive it and its owner crazy.

With a proper diet, it is generally recommended to feed medicinal mushrooms for about half the time it took for symptoms to develop from an improper diet to achieve full recovery. Therefore, if someone has always fed their 5-year-old dog with commercial feed and now severe symptoms have developed, I estimate that with a proper diet, it can be free of steroids and medications in 3-6 months. However, for the immune system to be as “factory-new” as a well-functioning one, it might take two, two and a half years. A chronically elevated “baseline” inflammatory level, exacerbated by steroid treatments, thoroughly exhausts the immune system. An thoroughly exhausted immune system and elevated baseline inflammatory levels in the body are breeding grounds for further pathological conditions.

Author: Dr. Miklós Varga

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Dosing of liquid mushroom extracts for pets

Dosing of liquid mushroom extracts for pets

DOGS:

The dosage is 1 ml per 10 kg + 1 ml of each mushroom preparation as the base dose.

A dog weighing 5 kg can safely eat 1.5 ml per day, and it is recommended for a dog weighing 40 kg to eat 5.0 ml per day. For severely ill dogs with cancer, it is suggested to double this basic dose and triple it for 3 months during and after chemotherapy.

It is better to give a lower amount during the 7–10-day lead-in period, which means minus the extra +1 ml. It is recommended to not give it all in one go in the evening as they may not fall asleep afterwards as the formula tends to make them a bit wound up.

The upper limit is pretty much set by your wallet because if you feed double the amount of this ration, nothing bad will happen to the dog. In severe cases, I usually recommend that you take this dose for two products at the same time. Unfortunately, even after 3 weeks of using Lion’s Mane mushroom formulations, the dog may still have difficulty tolerating them, although this is rare; it may manifest itself as diarrhoea. In this case, stick to the smaller dose for a longer period. There is not yet enough data available for small animals, but even after experience of human consumption, it is safe to say that there is no known toxic dose.

Small amounts also make sense and have a therapeutic effect because of the information – there are some places where horses are given around three times the cat dose with great results – and where help is really needed, quite large doses can be safely given. If the body’s own defence system can still be awakened, the animal is likely to recover.

The other component of recovery is diet!

It’s not just the other treatments and chemotherapy that are really important for fungi, but the right diet. I say this as a veterinarian and in some places contrary to the written rules of the profession.

A diet based on animal proteins and animal fats appropriate to the needs of the species, low in carbohydrates and low in processed nutrients, which is not, of course, a meal.

Nevertheless, the necessary medical treatments are not usually unnecessary. To avoid steroids in the acute phase of allergies causing severe symptoms and itching is, in my opinion, unnecessary cruelty to animals. Only these steroids can usually be safely discontinued after a few weeks or months, whereas without medicinal mushrooms it is usually years.

It is important to administer medicinal mushrooms alongside chemo to reduce side effects, so I’m not trying to persuade anyone to skip a recommended chemotherapy treatment if they otherwise believe in it. The more options the better and chemotherapy results are showing improving statistics. The difference of opinion is more about prioritisation. In my opinion, medicinal mushrooms come first, and the right diet comes second, and any other correct and necessary medication, remedies, and interventions can only come third in these chronic internal medicine cases. The exception is perhaps pain relief because in cases of great pain, the first priority is the use of effective painkillers.

The administration of medicinal mushrooms together with blood thinners and insulin requires increased attention and caution! To the best of our knowledge, they can be safely given with all other medicines.

CATS:

0.5 ml/kg, max 2.5 ml/day total medicinal mushrooms.

So, cats over 5 kg should not be given more. We don’t double the dose here, we’re happy to administer it. It can be given continuously, but after 2 months of treatment, we recommend the same number of breaks if the condition does not otherwise require continued feeding.

Unfortunately, the cat is wired to be distrustful of sweet aromatic liquids. The majority of cats will take it regardless, but for a significant proportion, feeding is a major problem.

How can you trick the cat a little? Here is one owner’s description of a successful method:

As for the administration, I use the following method. I aspirate 1-1.5ml of mushroom extract into a clean syringe, then a small nutritional supplement – from Animonde, called Milkies – to fill the 3ml syringe. It is a white cream-like liquid, similar to the packaging of a mini coffee cream. Our cat loves it. So even though the two liquids don’t mix, they squeeze out of the syringe very nicely at the same time (kind of like two-colour toothpaste) if held nearly horizontally. Put your kitten on your lap, the syringe in the corner of its mouth, and very carefully administer it – so that it doesn’t spit it out – and swallow it. If necessary, I’ll suck up some Milkies on the go in the syringe. Maybe it would work with lactose-free milk, I haven’t tried that. I tried to give it to her neat at the beginning, well… she swallowed it… she moaned a lot because of the sticky consistency… and after a few minutes, she threw it all up in revenge. This did not happen with the mixed method. I can’t say that he’s happy during the process, but he’s absolutely fine.

If you have to decide between less or shorter periods, then clearly the choice is less but for a longer period. Medicinal mushrooms work when consumed by the animal. It does not cumulate, if it is not consumed it has no effect. There is no need to take breaks.

A veterinarian’s thoughts on dog food

A veterinarian’s thoughts on dog food

The following criticism is about healthy dog’s food and not about special diet therapeutic food because e.g., a dog with pancreatitis should not eat fat, while a healthy dog will be fine even if he eats only fat for weeks.

How has the feeding of dogs changed in the last hundred years, which in evolutionary terms is a blink of an eye? The proportion of animal matter in the dog’s diet has gone from 90-95% to 20-25% with the rise of pet feed. The predatory dog has effectively become a herbivorous pet.

The consequences are cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, heart and kidney problems.  Today more than 30% of dogs suffer from cancer at some point in their lives. In their wild counterparts, say a pack of wolves, these diseases are unknown. A lack of exercise only adds to this dietary health ruin.

Some good advice for reading the contents on the feed bag:

  • Unfortunately, protein does not necessarily mean animal protein!
  • If ”beef” is on the list of ingredients, it is not always meat. Unfortunately, in reality it can also be tendons, cartilage, horns and skin and hair.
  • Grain is not good news either, but fructose (fruit sugar) is specifically toxic and so is rapeseed oil, because of its erucic acid content.
  • The claim ‘carefully selected’ is usually an empty marketing ploy.

What is the feed made up of?

Proteins, Fats, Carbohydrates basically.

Proteins are the building blocks of the body. Unfortunately, most of what is in our diets is made up of legumes. The digestive organs of a dog that has evolved to a predatory lifestyle cannot digest it sufficiently, for example, because the intestinal tract is much shorter. The proportion of amino acids in soy is different from that in the prey animal. Unfortunately, the smaller amounts of the so-called limiting amino acids dictate the overall protein utilisation. In addition, some specifically toxic proteins have been developed by these plant species over millions of years to protect the animals that destroy them. A carnivore is more vulnerable than an herbivore.

Fats

Dogs get most of their energy from animal fats when they can. The diets contain a lot of vegetable fats, oils and even trans fats that are not found in the wild. They have a much higher ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 which is pro-inflammatory (ideally 1:1). The lack of polyunsaturated fatty acids renders these membranes inelastic with far-reaching consequences.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrate is empty calories for your dog, a nutrient-less fuel. Canine predators have almost no access to carbohydrates by consuming prey animals, at most some semi-digested plant parts are taken in from the stomach contents. In nature, the maximum percentage of carbohydrates in a dog’s diet is 5% and the maximum percentage of carbohydrates in a dog’s diet is over 50%. Carbohydrates break down into sugars, which when burned produce toxic free radicals.

The dog’s organs and cells choose fat over sugar when they can, and they function better by burning fat. With very few exceptions. Even the brain thanks you very much, but it’s fine on ketone bodies. Only the red blood cells need sugar, the little bit that the body can produce itself from fat and protein whenever it needs it. So it’s never the lack of sugar, it’s always the excess sugar that causes the problem for dogs fed with food. The body fills up liver and muscle glycogen stores first, then tries to get rid of the excess sugar by burning it instead of fat. The liver then makes fat from them which the body stores as visceral fat and the visible subcutaneous fat deposits appear.

As high blood glucose levels are persistent, so are high insulin levels, and consequent insulin intolerance develops, the kidneys also pass sugar as a drainage valve, so it is also present in the urine. That’s diabetes. Meanwhile, the body’s underlying inflammation levels are rising, chronic inflammation is a breeding ground for cancer. If the dog is fed only and exclusively animal fat, a protein deficiency develops by the second third week, but carbohydrate deficiency is an unknown concept to the dog.

Why does the dog eat so much of the feed?

That is because they are being deceived. Firstly, the dog’s hunger is limited by protein intake. It will stop eating when it has consumed the required amount of protein, regardless of how much carbohydrate it has eaten…

On the other hand

The dog eats what the owner gives it, it is vulnerable, but the fact that it eats food regularly (wolves do not feast on wheat or pea fields!) is because of flavour enhancers, texture improvers, stabilisers, and other additives. Which are good at tricking your senses.

The farmer is motivated by convenience, and simplicity and is dazzled by the excellent marketing. For those who still have questions, put a slice of ham or whatever is available at the butchers in another bowl with the dry food and see which one the dense “vegetarian” animal chooses.

Unfortunately, the veterinarian also mostly goes with the flow, we were not taught about animal nutrition, only about farm animals, and anyone who really thinks about it can easily come to the conclusion that the destruction of the animals’ health caused by the beautiful, coloured feed bags also increases the turnover of my practice.

It’s a farcical attitude, but I think most people don’t even think about it, they go with the flow, such criticisms don’t get much publicity. For profit.

So to sum up: all carbohydrates are broken down into sugar. All carbohydrates are reduced to carbohydrates. These act as hormones and work against health.  Too much sugar in the intestines creates leaky gut syndrome which causes allergies.

Too much sugar in the blood leads to diabetes, and elevated inflammation levels lead to tumours. A brighter outlook.

My favourite example of how strong a dog’s immune system is the following: If he gets a nice big, tasty bone-in meat when he’s well fed, he’ll bury it in the backyard.

Yes, but when the fasting days come, in a week or two he’ll pick it up again and eat it! Which will rot in the ground for a week, and nothing will happen to it!! Starting from this level, you manage to break down the immune system to one of the above-detailed conditions, primarily caused by daily food consumption.

You should also buy a bottle of HerbalVet medicinal mushroom extract with every feed bag you buy, to give the dog a chance.

In addition, if we notice that there is a problem, we can try to correct many of the adverse effects by fasting and protein intake.  Eat lean meats and eggs, which are complete proteins and provide few calories. Alongside these, you can start breaking down fat stores, and cleaning out toxins with the help of medicinal mushrooms.

Medicinal mushrooms are good for detoxification, boosting metabolism, strengthening the immune system and reducing inflammation. In which snacks are not part of.

Dogs on feed would eat medicinal mushrooms.

There are also many similarities in the diets of humans to those described above. The big difference is that humans are omnivores, they really have no problems with a well-chosen vegan diet!

Dr. Varga Miklós
HerbalVet

Tumor and other HerbalVet Bio liquid medicinal mushroom extracts

Tumor and other HerbalVet Bio liquid medicinal mushroom extracts

You should take a HerbalVet Medicinal Mushroom Extract with every bag of dry food you give your dog, to give them a chance.

Nowadays, urban dog owners face an increasing number of chronic dog diseases. Tumours, allergies, and diabetes demand special attention and unfortunately at an increasingly young age.

Today, 30% of dogs will develop cancer at some point in their lives. 1-4% of dogs have diabetes.

Like humans, animals kept indoors in a rhythm of life far removed from nature and fed dry food suffer from so-called urban illnesses similar to those of their owners. The last 100 years have seen a radical change in the composition of the dog’s diet, with a plethora of dog food shops generating a huge turnover and a handsome profit. The owner is given advice that leads him towards even more expensive feeds, and not only from the retailers but also from fellow owners, breeders and even most vets who recommend “good quality” feed. Here is when we end up back in the same place, with the more expensive feed causing unexplained allergy symptoms again and again. Let’s face it, if our dog is not the happy, energetic, bouncy animal he was a year or two ago, and is a bit thinner, a little more aged, then something is not right. This is experienced even in younger dogs. Some of the questions you may be asking are will regular visits to the vet never end?  What or who can we trust? What if we have another dog, will the same thing happen? If the other dog ends up in the same flat, possibly fed a different type of dry food, there is a good chance that they will end up in the same place, unwell at the age of 5-6 years, 8-9 years if I’m lucky.

In veterinary clinics, cancer is treated with chemotherapy with increasingly good results, and allergies are mostly treated with steroids. The itching seems to have been cut off thanks to the steroid treatment. Unfortunately, only for a while. Avoidance of so-called allergens e.g. in the case of chicken allergies, avoiding chicken feed is also a spiral or vortex that pulls you down.

We make organic medicinal mushroom extracts for pets. we offer the answer to these problems. Many dogs with metastatic tumours that looked hopeless have had their quality of life improved dramatically and their lives prolonged.

Few people end up feeding their dog BARF, which you also need to know how to do really well in the long run.

At HerbalVet we do not cure the disease. I have decided in this text not to use professional visual elements such as neovascularisation or apoptotic effect. I am now addressing pet owners. Suffice it to say that if the dog’s immune system is ‘derailed’, it cannot cope with the stresses of the environment, and various diseases develop in response to various influences because the weakened immune system cannot defend itself sufficiently.

Medicinal mushrooms support the extremely complex immune system so that the dog’s body is able to fight off the disease on its own. In humans, lifestyle changes have been the cause of a spectacular rise in heart attacks and cancers since the 1970s. These have been accompanied in the 2000s by new types of increasingly popular diseases such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease.

These people are victims, they are not and cannot be blamed, but we are most likely facing lifestyle diseases caused by diet, lack of exercise and environmental stresses such as electrosmog. The same is true for pets. The challenges of a changing environment require different, previously unimagined responses. Owners are not at all responsible for the situation.

Not only has the general public not been informed about it, but there is not even complete agreement in scientific (professional) circles about the value and meaning of the use of medicinal mushrooms.

Lassie arrived at our clinic on 12 May 2022 with a bleeding wound on his mammary tumour. He also had a long-standing tumour on one of his thighs and small lumps in several other places. The tumour on his thigh had previously led to the desire for his leg to be amputated at another clinic. At that time, he did not have such a large mammary tumour. The owner has asked that if his hind legs have to be cut off, he should be put down for good. They went home that day with a large bottle of Tumor medicinal mushrooms and a one-week appointment. After a week I removed the mammary tumour. After 4 days, I was eagerly anticipating the first check-up, when the owner told me that Lassie was livelier than before the surgery, interested and looked much younger than a few weeks ago. He had been eating our Tumor Medicated Mushroom for 11 days!

Well, that can be hoped for in a good case. Of course, there are serious cases that come too late and show no improvement. As long as the immune system can be awakened there is hope regardless of the type, location or type of tumour, nothing is hopeless although there are patients who arrive too late, and all help proves unsuccessful.

In Lassie’s case, the owners had decided that they did not want chemotherapy, and unfortunately, they did not want to spend on a pathological diagnosis, except for surgery, so they put all their hopes and money into medicinal mushroom preparations.

I could tell you about a greyhound with melanoma whose survival rate of 1-2 months has been changed to a year and a half and he is still doing well today.

Within 1-2 weeks of starting to take Metabolic, Zinko the cat with FORL was eating crunchy bites that he hadn’t eaten in 2-3 years. Forl is a tooth malabsorption disorder associated with severe painful gingivitis and slow painful tooth absorption. FORL is one of the most common cat diseases today, affecting 20-70% of cats. To this I say that the development of this disease is neither genetic nor idiopathic, but a consequence of the immune system’s inadequate functioning. I cannot back up my opinion with any scientific facts or experimental research, only experience. Experience is two words: It works. That’s good enough for me. Just let it work. An old cranky furry dog suddenly jumps up again, so much so that you wouldn’t believe it’s the same cat as 2-3 weeks ago.

Today, HerbalVet medicinal mushroom products are a unique and pioneering range of products in Hungary and even in the world. The first chitin-free liquid organic medicinal mushroom extract was developed exclusively for pets. Ganoderma has been known in Chinese medicine for thousands of years, yet it is only in the last decade that it has gained breakthrough recognition in the Western world.

HerbalVet Tumor Organic Liquid Medicinal Mushroom Extract would be at most comparable to other medicinal mushroom products on the market if they were available.

As the capsule products contain mushroom powder, they contain all the active ingredients, but unfortunately also the chitinase of the mushroom. Chitin is not digestible, and products encapsulated in chitin are poorly absorbed, which is why the effectiveness of capsule products is a fraction of that of liquid mushroom extracts. Actually, there are some excellent quality products on the market, mainly for human use, in powder form. The so-called biphasic extraction, using an aqueous and ethanolic fraction, ensures the active ingredient content and chitin-free formulation. The Naja Forest liquid medicinal mushroom products are a sound scientific demonstration of their efficacy. Tumor medicinal mushroom mix contains 5 types of medicinal mushrooms. They work in synergy with each other. The synergistic effect means that the medicinal mushroom ingredients reinforce and enhance each other’s effects. This is the well-known 2+2=5 effect, which is known in biology, but is mathematically unintelligible.

In severe cases of cancer, we usually double the normal dose, often recommending the use of another medicinal mushroom as well at the same time.

I have been working with medicinal mushrooms for more than ten years, and in the last three years, I started the development of the HerbalVet range for pets. I’m a veterinarian, I lived in England for many years. I did a Naturopathic Nutritionist degree at the CNM (College of Naturopathic Medicine) in Manchester from 2010-2012, that’s where I first heard about these miracle mushrooms. At the time many people mistook it for psychedelic magic mushrooms. Hardly anyone had heard of it at that time, but I’m proud to say that when I moved back home in 2018, I was confronted with the fact that there is much more public awareness of medicinal mushrooms in Hungary than in England. Many people here are familiar with it and believe in it. In recent years, beta-glucans, thought to be the secret wonder drug, have also started to be mentioned in western veterinary medicine at scientific conferences. These are the best-known active ingredients of medicinal mushrooms.

I remember in England, as a veterinarian, I was trying to explain to the practice managers what medicinal mushrooms were for, suggesting that we should try them, and maybe we could use them too. I was always met with stiff rejection (in several places) and even got in trouble because I told the owner frankly that there was nothing else, I could do for the animal, but if he was interested, I could try something new. Unfortunately, he was interested, and then he took it to the boss, who started with the usual homoeopathy cannot be used to cure speech, because everything that is not a product of the big drug companies is the endlessly diluted drugless humbug, i.e. homoeopathy. Magic, witchcraft, quackery.

Well, that’s what I’m offering now, with the difference that I’m much more confident than I was then and as the results come in, I’ve realised many important things.

In the early days of cancer therapy, medicinal mushrooms were renowned for making side effects tolerable, alleviating them, and eliminating them. That is why they had/have a place alongside chemotherapies in cancer therapy.

Fortunately, officially licensed, this began to crop up here and there. Then, slowly, the experience began to accumulate, showing that much better results could be achieved in cancer therapy with medicinal mushrooms than without medicinal mushrooms. Today, I believe that the best chance of success is to use medicinal mushrooms in combination with chemotherapy (in high enough doses for a long period of time). There is human research that shows that for particular cancers, chemo was 40-45%, with medicinal mushrooms 60-65%, and when the two were used together, the cure rate was 90%. Of course, this is not true for all types, but it is acceptable as a basic assumption. In fact, it is very remarkable.

Today in Hungary, the veterinary line has a great advantage over the human medical line, because HerbalVet medicinal mushroom extracts are officially registered as medicinal products by NÉBIH, while the human line can at most sell them as food supplements.

So, it’s an organic product, it’s a premium product, and it’s inescapable because if you’re looking for a demanding and real answer to a problem, I’m convinced that you can’t avoid the use of medicinal mushrooms if you have a dog with cancer. All this is now available at an introductory price.

Medicinal mushrooms do not cause side effects. Not only do they not cause side effects, but they first became known for reducing side effects, as I’ve written. This reminds me, that I do have a story about the unpleasant side effect of medicinal mushrooms.

Another company’s high-quality organic lion’s mane mushroom product was taken by a man who complained that it made his stomach hurt. This is easy enough to prove, he stopped taking it for a while but once he began taking it again, the stomach ache came back again with clockwork precision. He couldn’t understand the problem with this product. It worked for others. He asked the manufacturer, who quite rightly told him that organic lion’s mane mushrooms are of high quality, so something might be wrong with his stomach, which should be tested. Taking the advice, the examining doctor congratulated the patient on the fact that although he had an ulcer, due to this pain he experienced it was caught at an early stage, a state which doesn’t usually produce pain symptoms, but this meant that the prospects for treatment were much better. This example also strengthened my faith. I accepted that these adaptogenic magic mushrooms were really working for us.

Reishi, or Ganoderma lucidum, has been identified as a medicinal mushroom with more than 400 types of biologically active beneficial physiological properties. Of course, vitamin D is one of them, but there are 400 others! You can’t do this synthetically ( luckily) only nature is able to do this. This is how it is able to harmonize the body’s function as an adaptogenic fungus. This means that where the need is greatest, the help is there, so it works differently for everyone. For example, Reishi contains antihypertensive substances that act as beta-blockers, but only reduce abnormally high blood pressure, not low or normal blood pressure. I won’t go into the effects of immunosuppressants, anti-inflammatories, antihistamines, and thousands of others. That’s what professional publications and books are for.

It’s not some useless or cheap dog vitamin or chemo or steroid with its side effects, but something else entirely. It is a novel response to a change in lifestyle. Today, it is an essential life-protecting medicine for immobile dogs that consume a lot of dog food (or canned dog food, dog salami) kept in the city or in the home.

It’s well worth thinking about owners whose dogs are not sick. They are thinking what about my dog, do I need it? Who should use it as a preventive measure?

It may not be necessary to feed medicinal mushroom extracts as a preventive measure to dogs on a BARF diet that are allowed to run free in a yard with sufficient space. In all other cases, it prevents the onset of the unwanted symptoms that are bound to occur, postponing them until much later in life.

Here is an “Is my dog healthy checklist?”. Please fill out the questionnaire. Just tick it and count the ticks at the end. I will not ask for the results, feel free to be honest.

  • How many times a week does my pet eat dry food? For any amount of more than one, please tick.
  • How about other industrially processed dog food? (canned, dog salami?) Any more than one please check.
  • Dog kept indoors.
  • Time for walks? Are you happy with the amount of total time for the walks? Is your dog also content with this? If not, please check.
  • Is the dog overweight?  (Just run your fingers along his chest. If you can easily feel the ribs under the skin, just the skin between your fingers and the ribs, you’re in good shape, if you can see all the ribs, you’re thin. As always there are exceptions to everything, e.g. greyhounds).
  • How old is he? (Deduct two from the result up to age 3, one from the result up to age 5, tick over 6.)
  • Veterinary treatments?  If you have been to the vet more than once in the last year for an illness, tick. Vaccines and worming do not count.

    We also pack a dispensing syringe with each product and our first customers receive a brochure about the mushrooms, the products, and a real guide to mushrooms.

    The golden rule of dosing: The dog dose: 1ml per 10kg, +1ml.

    So, a 15kg dog should be given 2.5ml/day and a 40kg dog 5ml/day.

    Our motto: for every bag of dry food there should be a bottle of HerbalVet Medicinal Mushroom Extract given, to give your dog a chance. Why do we say this?

    The biggest enemy of urban dog ownership has become the food industry.

    Dry food offers a convenient and quick solution to a burning problem – everyday dog feeding – on a tray. Cooking extra for a dog is like having another family member who needs a special diet of HerbalVet HerbalMushrooms.

    Who has the time and energy?

    I have bad news for you. Remember when I wrote that no owner should be held responsible because they are in this situation? That’s true, except for you, who, if you’ve got this far in your reading, you’ve already found out that things can be done, that this is how to do it. Not knowing is an excuse, knowing is a responsibility.