Printed from https://bottledhope.co/supplements/lions-mane/. Last reviewed 2026-09-23. Check the site for the latest version.

Lion’s mane

An edible mushroom long used in traditional Chinese medicine, now sold and promoted for memory, anxiety and depression.

Explained simply · Last reviewed 2026-09-23

What it is

Lion’s mane is an edible mushroom, Hericium erinaceus. LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, says it grows on the trunks of dead hardwood trees across the Northern hemisphere, and is most abundant in East Asia. Its long, white, dangling spines look something like a lion’s mane. It is eaten as a food, LiverTox says, and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.

More about Lion’s mane

LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, says it grows on the trunks of dead hardwood trees across the Northern hemisphere, and is most abundant in East Asia. Its long, white, dangling spines look something like a lion’s mane. It is eaten as a food, LiverTox says, and has been used in traditional Chinese medicine for centuries.

Lion’s mane has two parts: the fruiting body, which is the mushroom itself, and the mycelium, the network of fine threads it grows from. A 2024 review of human studies describes trials of products made from both, among others. LiverTox lists many compounds in the fungus, including hericenones and erinacines, along with polysaccharides and the vitamins and minerals found in many mushrooms. It states that which of them is responsible for its purported effects is unknown.

LiverTox states that in the United States lion’s mane is not approved to treat any symptom or disease. It is, LiverTox says, widely sold and promoted to improve memory and to relieve anxiety and depression. It also states that most of the effects claimed for it have been demonstrated in cell culture or in animal models, but have not been found in humans.

Also known as: Hericium erinaceus, Yamabushitake, bearded tooth, hedgehog fungus, monkey head

At a glance

Safety: known risks. See Safety ↓

Claims made about Lion’s mane, and how strong the evidence is for each:

Improves memory and thinking in mild cognitive impairmentEvidence rating: Limited
Reduces depression and anxiety symptomsEvidence rating: Insufficient
Supports nerve health and nerve repairEvidence rating: Insufficient

Each rating follows our published rules and the sources cited for it. We don’t add our own medical judgment. How we rate

Safety

Read this before the ratings below.

Risks

LiverTox, a US government liver-injury database, rates lion’s mane an unlikely cause of clinically apparent liver injury (its likelihood score E). It reports no cases of liver injury attributed to lion’s mane in small clinical trials. It states that lion’s mane is not listed in large case series or systematic reviews of liver injury from herbal and dietary supplements.
LiverTox reports that in clinical trials of longer use, mild stomach complaints (abdominal discomfort, nausea or diarrhea) have been reported. They occurred usually in fewer than 10% of the people taking it, and were generally not severe enough to stop.
LiverTox states that at least one acute hypersensitivity (allergic) reaction to lion’s mane taken by mouth has been described.
LiverTox states that lion’s mane has not been subjected to prospective trials of its safety. It also reports that the few short-term human studies found few adverse events and scant evidence of any toxicity.
A 2025 systematic review reports one case report from Japan of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), a severe lung condition. The patient was a 63-year-old man with mild, untreated diabetes who had been taking lion’s mane supplements regularly. The review calls it one of the rare cases in which a side effect of potentially fatal severity was reported. A lymphocyte reaction test with a lion’s mane extract gave significantly positive results, and the case report concluded that lion’s mane contains a compound capable of triggering an allergic reaction. The review adds that the cause of the ARDS cannot be entirely attributed to lion’s mane without further investigation.
The same 2025 review lists, as rarely reported side effects in the studies it included, stomach discomfort, diarrhea, headaches and epimenorrhea (a change in the menstrual cycle). In one trial it lists abdominal discomfort, nausea and skin rash. It records that the one participant who reported epimenorrhea was excluded from that study, and that the symptom was not attributed to lion’s mane. Its abstract lists stomach discomfort, headache and allergic reactions as potential side effects that are commonly unreported.

Safety sources: Source [1]Source [2]

What the evidence says

Each claim is rated on its own evidence. Ratings follow the scale on our methodology page.

Improves memory and thinking in mild cognitive impairment Evidence rating: Limited
People with mild cognitive impairment, an early decline in memory or thinking, take it hoping it will sharpen them.
One small trial in older adults with mild cognitive impairment found better dementia-scale scores than a control group, but a 2024 review calls the findings of mushroom trials mixed.
A 2024 systematic review of human studies found one trial in 30 older adults with mild cognitive impairment. In it, dementia-scale scores improved compared with a control group. The review also reports a gain in a second trial in older adults, on one of three cognitive tests. In a year-long pilot trial in people with mild Alzheimer’s disease, it reports no significant cognitive difference from the control group. Its authors describe the intervention findings as mixed and call for well-designed, long-term trials. The review was funded by the Mushroom Council, a mushroom-industry body.

LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, describes two of those trials differently. It reports no significant difference between the groups on any of the three tests in the second trial. In the Alzheimer’s pilot, it describes more improvement on cognitive tests than with placebo. It also states that the nerve-protecting and cognition-enhancing effects seen in animals have not been shown to any great extent in humans.

A 2025 systematic review concludes that lion’s mane shows limited effectiveness in clinical trials, though its abstract describes it as effective for cognitive function. It could not perform a meta-analysis because of incomplete and unclear reporting in the included studies. It also searched only one database.

The human evidence is a few small trials. Neither systematic review pooled them into a meta-analysis or rated how sure it was of the findings (certainty) with GRADE, a standard grading system.

Sources: Source [1]Source [2]Source [3]
Reduces depression and anxiety symptoms Evidence rating: Insufficient
People take it hoping it will lift low mood and ease anxiety.
A 2024 review reports that in two small trials, depression or anxiety scores improved on where people started but not against a control group; a 2025 review reads them more favorably.
The reviews’ evidence on depression and anxiety rests mainly on two small trials, and the sources disagree about what they show. A 2024 systematic review of human studies, funded by the Mushroom Council, describes both. One was a four-week trial in Japanese women with a variety of non-specific complaints. The other was an eight-week trial in middle-aged adults with overweight or obesity who were also following a low-calorie diet. In both, depression or anxiety scores improved compared with where participants started. Compared directly with the control group, however, neither trial found a significant difference. Even so, the review’s own conclusion is that the experimental findings tentatively show a reduction in depressive symptoms.

LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, describes the first trial as showing no difference between the groups on depression scales. It adds that scores for feeling irritable, anxious and having palpitations improved on a complaints index with lion’s mane but not with placebo.

A 2025 systematic review reads the first trial as showing a significant fall in depression scores. It describes the mood findings as showing strong potential, and notes that only a few studies have looked at mood.

The disagreement is between what the trials showed against placebo, as the 2024 review and LiverTox report it, and the more favorable conclusions both reviews draw: tentative in the 2024 review, strong potential in the 2025 review. Under this site’s rules, when sources disagree the lower rating is taken. An insufficient rating means the cited evidence is too limited to show whether there is an effect; it does not mean the sources found no effect.

Sources: Source [1]Source [2]Source [3]
Supports nerve health and nerve repair Evidence rating: Insufficient
Some people take it hoping it will protect their nerves.
A 2026 review found only cell and animal studies and calls for clinical ones; LiverTox says these nerve-protecting effects have not been shown to any great extent in humans.
The evidence here is from cells and animals, not people. A 2026 systematic review of mushrooms for peripheral nerve injury included five lion’s mane studies, all of them laboratory or animal work. Its authors identify lion’s mane as the most promising of the mushrooms they reviewed for potential clinical applications. They conclude that clinical studies are necessary.

LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, states that erinacines, compounds in lion’s mane, have been found in rats and mice to stimulate the production of nerve growth factor and to speed recovery from injury caused by interrupted blood supply. It states that these nerve-protecting effects have not been shown to any great extent in humans. Most of the benefits claimed for lion’s mane, it says, have been shown in cell culture or in animals but not found in humans.

Sources: Source [1]Source [2]

Which form the evidence used

Supplements are sold in several forms. This is what the sources on this page say about them — which form the research used, and any comparison those sources themselves made. Where they made none, this page does not rank the forms.

Fruiting body (the mushroom itself), What the sources supportDetails
A 2024 review of human studies reports that the trial in older adults with mild cognitive impairment, and a second trial in older adults, used the fruiting body. These are the two trials it describes as showing cognitive gains compared with a control group. LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, describes the first of them as using powdered Yamabushitake (lion’s mane). Neither source compared fruiting body with any other form. Source [1]Source [2]
Mycelium (the thread-like growth the mushroom develops from), including erinacine A-enriched extracts, What the sources supportDetails
The one trial in people with mild Alzheimer’s disease that a 2024 review of human studies describes used mycelium. The review reports that, compared directly with the control group, this trial found no significant difference in cognitive scores. None of the cited sources compared mycelium with fruiting-body products. Source [1]
Any lion’s mane product, whichever form, Details
No cited source compared forms head to head, so this page cannot say whether fruiting body and mycelium differ. LiverTox, the US government’s liver-injury database, states that which ingredient is responsible for lion’s mane’s purported effects is unknown. It describes a chemical analysis in which concentrations varied considerably between preparations. Source [1]

Sources

A review of the effects of mushrooms on mood and neurocognitive health across the lifespan
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 2024 · Systematic review · Primary source
This source discloses industry funding.
Some of its authors disclose ties to industry.
Benefits, side effects, and uses of Hericium erinaceus as a supplement: a systematic review
Frontiers in Nutrition, 2025 · Systematic review · Primary source
Lion’s Mane
LiverTox: Clinical and Research Information on Drug-Induced Liver Injury, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 2024 · Health authority summary · Primary source
Application of Medicinal Mushrooms for the Treatment of Peripheral Nerve Injury: A Systematic Review
Medical Sciences, 2026 · Systematic review · Primary source

Page history

Show all 5 changes to this page

2026-09-28 — Rewritten to the content style guideline; ratings and sources unchanged.
2026-09-23 — Published. All three claims, the safety section and every source passed the site's source and wording reviews. An unread 2023 review stays logged in docs/08-open-decisions.md.
2026-09-23 — Revised after wording review. The page summary now separates the human trials for memory and mood from the cell and animal evidence for nerve health. Statements that report a source’s findings now name that source. The ARDS case report now includes the patient’s diabetes, as the 2025 review describes. The mood summary now explains the rating by the site’s rule for disagreeing sources. No rating changed.
2026-09-23 — Revised after source review. The safety section now also cites the 2025 systematic review. It reports a Japanese case report of acute respiratory distress syndrome in a man taking lion’s mane, with the review’s caveat that the cause cannot be entirely attributed to it, and lists the side effects that review records. The mood summary adds the 2024 review’s own tentative conclusion. The cognition summary drops a point about younger adults, which is outside the claim’s population. Two form notes were corrected to match their sources. No rating changed.
2026-09-23 — First drafted. Memory and thinking in mild cognitive impairment rated limited; depression and anxiety, and nerve health, rated insufficient. No cited source reports GRADE certainty. The safety section rests on the LiverTox entry, which rates lion’s mane an unlikely cause of liver injury (likelihood score E).