Occasionally big scientific breakthroughs are made and we all cheer a quiet cheer and we move on. Sometimes these breakthroughs are bigger and more profound and sometimes they’re less of a breakthrough and more of a slow burst forth. These slower achievements aren’t any less profound and they’re not necessarily less world changing, they just take a little while to occur and because of humanity’s inability to focus of something for a long period of time, they can easily be forgotten.
The amazing caterpillar fungus is one of those things. It’s miraculous, exotic and has been shown of have all sorts of medicinal uses but due to the amount of time it’s taken to discover these uses it’s rather slipped from the public eye. In the past caterpillar fungus or, cordyceps has been shown to have amazing properties when used to fight off diseases like cancer and help in cases of arthritis. In several trials it showed powerful effects and got scientists very excited but due to the relatively expensive and incredibly rare nature of the fungus it can be difficult to obtain.
Recently the fungus has been shown to have potential as anti-inflammatory aged too. This is fantastic news if you’re sufferers of an inflammatory condition like rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, renal failure or stroke damage as it could help to ease your symptoms.
The reason cordyceps is so rare is that the fungus grows on caterpillars which hibernate in the Tibetan mountains. Farmers dig up or otherwise find the caterpillars and pluck the fungus straight from them and sell it on. Tiny quantities of it are worth hundreds of pounds and before it was recognised by western medicine it was used massively by Traditional Chinese Medicine. Hopefully in the coming years will see more of cordyceps and its miraculous qualities!
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