The post-antibiotic world of Western Medicine is now beginning to study, evaluate, and test Chaga for the active compounds underlying its historically understood homeopathic benefits. As with many other natural medicinal foods and herbs, the modern medical and scientific community is coming to understand that whole supplements like Chaga, offer a complex balance of active compounds, delivery mineral structures, and co-agents, more effective to sustaining a healthy immune balance than isolated compounds synthesized from these natural products.

For the past 40 years, 1,600 modern scientific studies have demonstrated and proven the pharmacological effects of medicinal mushrooms for the immune, hormonal and central nervous system.

The primary active compounds discovered in Siberian Chaga are a variety of triterpenes and sterols including Lanosterol, Ergosterol Inotodiols, Saponins, and Polysaccharides. Modern research is now beginning to demonstrate that these compounds are effective for human maladies treated by folk medicine practitioners with natural products, without toxic side-effect, for millennia. Scientific research regarding the effects of Chaga have centered around its long history of use in Asia as a cancer treatment, immune system booster, and anti-aging medicinal.

There is now scientific research to support the claims of the folk medicinal uses. The most recent and definitive analytical work on Chaga, and arguably, the most well known western research conducted on the use of Chaga has been performed by Dr. Kirsti Kahlos and her team at School of Pharmacology, at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Dr. Kahlos' team conducted studies validating the immuno-modulating impact of Lanosterol-linked triterpenes effective as a flu-vaccination and for anti-tumor applications. Of those, the most active was specified as inotodiol. Institutional studies at the University of Tokyo, Japan have determined effectiveness of Inotodiols in the destruction of certain cancerous carcinosarcomas and mammary adenocarcinomas. They also found the compound betulin. The betulin is actually a compound from the birch tree that has anticancer properties. The Chaga fungus absorbs and concentrates the betulin from the birch and transforms it into a form that can be ingested orally. Other researchers have found active polysaccharides, a common occurrence in most medicinal mushrooms such as mitake and shiitake. Those polysaccharides are known to stimulate the immune system. Dr. Kahlos and other researches have found significant anti-cancer activity against specific tumor systems and against specific influenza viruses.

The Melanin complex produced by the Chaga mushroom demonstrates high antioxidant and genoprotective effects. The polysaccharide beta-glucan, also present in Chaga, is proven to be effective at inhibiting mutagenic and immuno-modulating effects of cancerous tumors by triggering immune system response. Chaga has shown anti-inflammatory activity which it is believed could be responsible for some of its benefits to the stomach and bowels. Scientific research has confirmed some of the primary folk uses of Chaga and it's mystical following over the years as it has been referred to in Asia as "the Mushroom of Immortality".

Siberian Chaga ongoing studies include:

- Cancer research (breast, lung, stomach, melanoma and bone)
- Leukemia
- HIV and Immune Compromised diseases
- Diabetes
- Ulcers
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- Pneumonia and Lung Disorders
- Natural Antioxidants

More recent pharmacological studies using Chaga in Poland, Russia, and the U.S.A. have shown anti-tumor activity related to the mammary glands and female sexual organs. Much of this research was carried out in Finland by researchers at the School of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki. The most active compound, inotodiol, has shown activity against influenza viruses A and B, and various cancer cells. Studies in Japan have also confirmed antiviral activity, (inhibition of the protease enzyme of HIV-1).

Chaga and HIV/AIDS Research

The very compound that makes the birch "shine bright white" which is transferred to the Chaga mushroom, has been tentatively linked to treatment for such devastating human ailments as some melanomas or cancer, several forms of herpes and even for AIDS. Betulin, a powdery substance in the outer bark of the birch tree and in concentration in Chaga, has been shown to help wounds heal faster and reduce inflammation. Chaga contains high amounts of betulinic acid, which is being tested as a treatment for melanoma and other serious diseases.

During the last twenty years, the department of pharmacognosy and botany of Irkutsk State Medical University deals with the study of the effects of Betulin on the vital activity of man.

Scientists Tulchinskaya and Yurgelaytis report, that in the air of birch forests are noted 400 microbes into 1 cubic meter, what is lower than the existing standard for the operating rooms in hospitals. Especially successfully (in 3-10 min) the bactericides of white part of birch bark manage to eliminate pathogens of typhoid fever, tuberculosis and diphtheria. Unique therapeutic properties are given to betulin - substance from the class of triterpenoids (triterpenovy diatomic alcohol of lupan).

The stability to harmful microflora white part of birch bark is obliged precisely to betulin. The studies, carried out during recent years, showed that THE BETULIN possesses the valuable pharmacological properties: antioxidant, antitumorigenic, antigipoksantnym, gepatoprotektornym, antiviral, immunomodulator, antibacterial, that regenerate, antipyretic, bile-expelling. Betulinic acid has been explored as a potential treatment for skin cancer for more than a decade. Betulin, which is highly concentrated in Chaga, its derivatives and other birch bark compounds also are being tested for effectiveness in treating HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which can cause severe cold-like symptoms and pneumonia. Examinations conducted, in Russian institute of pharmacology, showed that the complex of substances forming part of white part of birch bark and contained in Chaga possess high antimutagenic activity, capable of lowering the number of mutations in the chromosomes and the genes, the frequency of the appearance of hereditary changes in the organism.

The antimutagenic action of the substances is connected with their capability for the suppression of free-radical oxidation, and their ability to induce the production of interferons, which, as its known, positively influence the processes of reparation of DNA. The substances also contribute to the decrease of hypoxia and to increase of the stability of organism to the oxygen deficiency, being antihypoxant correcting the metabolism of cells.

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