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Turkey tail

Supplement mushroom immune
Aka: Trametes versicolor, PSK, PSP, yun zhi
Brands seen in Singapore: California Gold Nutrition, Host Defense, Swanson Vitamins, Real Mushrooms, Nutricost
Third-party tested: Real Mushrooms certifies other products with NSF Certified for Sport, but nothing for turkey tail.Certification is granted per product, so check the tub you actually own. Not being listed is not the same as failing.
Not medical advice. Check with your doctor or pharmacist before you start, stop or change the timing of anything you take.
How to use
What it’s for
Immune claims — trials are in cancer care, not general use
When to take
Daily
Studied for
The seven pooled trials ran 4 weeks to 3 years
Pros & cons
Pros
  • Cochrane pooled 7 RCTS, 1,569 people with bowel cancer
  • 5-year survival edged up: rr 1.08, low certainty
  • A phase I trial reported good tolerability
Cons
  • Certainty on side-effect outcomes: very low
  • Every trial used an extract (psk), given after surgery
  • Unclear if harms came from chemo or the extract
Sources
  1. Coriolus (Trametes) versicolor mushroom to reduce adverse effects from chemotherapy or radiotherapy in people with colorectal cancer (Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2022) — scope · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “We included seven parallel RCTs (1569 participants). Six studies (1516 participants) were conducted in Japan and one study (53 participants) in China.”
  2. Cochrane 2022 Coriolus versicolor review — certainty of evidence on adverse events · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “We found very low-certainty evidence of little to no effect of adjunctive treatment with Coriolus (in the form of an extract, polysaccharide-Krestin, PSK) on withdrawal from treatment due to adverse events”
  3. Cochrane 2022 Coriolus versicolor review — survival outcome · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “We found low-certainty evidence of a small effect of adjunctive Coriolus on improved survival at five years compared with no adjunctive care (RR 1.08, 95% CI 1.01 to 1.15; 1094 participants; 3 studies”
  4. Cochrane 2022 Coriolus versicolor review — authors' conclusions · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “The uncertainty in the evidence also means that it was unclear whether any adverse events were due to the chemotherapy or to the extract itself.”
  5. Cochrane 2022 Coriolus versicolor review — form and duration of the intervention · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “Coriolus was used in the form of an extract in all seven studies and was generally used after curative resection … Duration of treatment with the extract varied between four weeks and three years.”
  6. Exploring the Anticancer Potential of Coriolus versicolor in Breast Cancer: A Review (Curr Issues Mol Biol 2025) · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “A systematic PubMed search identified 11 original studies from 2010 to 2025 … One phase I clinical trial also reported good tolerability and immunological benefits in patients post-chemotherapy.”
  7. Recent Advances in the Use of Ganoderma lucidum and Coriolus versicolor Mushrooms to Enhance the Anticancer Efficacy of EGFR-Targeted Drugs in Lung Cancer (Pharmaceutics 2025) — herb-drug interactions · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “The potential risk of herb-drug interactions could become critical when cancer patients take Lingzhi/Yunzhi as adjuvants during cancer therapy. The involvement of drug transporters and cytochrome P450 enzymes in these herb-drug interactions is summarized.”
  8. HSA — Guidelines on Prohibited and Restricted Ingredients in Health Supplements and Traditional Medicines, GL-CHPB-1-012 Rev. No. 001 (Oct 2025), Annex A/B — searched, no row for this ingredient · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “The objective of this guideline is to highlight the substances of concern when used in HS and TM and is not meant to be an exhaustive list.”
  9. iHerb Singapore — Turkey Tail category (default order, 26 results); first 5 distinct brands: California Gold Nutrition, Host Defense, Swanson Vitamins, Real Mushrooms, Nutricost · read 2026-08-27
    what it says
    “California Gold Nutrition, Fungiology®, Certified Organic Turkey Tail Powder … Host Defense, Mushrooms™, Turkey Tail, 120 Capsules … Swanson Vitamins, Turkey Tail Mushroom, 120 Capsules … Real Mushrooms, Turkey Tail … Nutricost, Turkey Tail Mushroom”
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Updated 2026-08-30. Every line above traces to a numbered source. Kozen-X is not a medical device and does not give medical advice. It lists what published sources have written down — nothing more. A pair not listed is unrecorded, not cleared. Before you start, stop or re-time anything, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.