Atlas chapter 22 · Metabolic / lipids
Wood Ear
Auricularia heimuer (clinical label: Auricularia auricula-judae)
E2-3+ signal / causal grade unresolvedunresolved — Not assignable / unresolvedR1-2 related evidence
- Proposition / claim
- Within-group triglyceride and waist-circumference signals from a Korean Wood Ear functional-food trial; randomized causal contrast unresolved in the displayed analysis
- Evidence owner
- A specific Korean Wood Ear functional-food product
- Dominant uncertainty
- STATISTICAL: Is there a real randomized between-group triglyceride effect? TAXONOMIC: Which authenticated Auricularia species owned the clinical intervention?
- Organism
- Wood Ear
- Tested intervention
- Wood Ear powder incorporated into the study functional foods, consumed twice daily for eight weeks; clinical material reported as Auricularia auricula-judae
- Evidence target
- Standardized preparation
- Intervention description
- A specific functional-food intervention: Wood Ear powder incorporated into study functional foods, taken twice daily for eight weeks, in an open-label nutritional intervention. The clinical material was reported as Auricularia auricula-judae and was not molecularly authenticated. Evidence does not transfer automatically to generic Wood Ear, to generic Auricularia heimuer powder, or to European A. auricula-judae.
- Population
- 50 analysed middle-aged/older Korean adults: intervention n=24; control n=26.
- Comparator
- Maltodextrin control; randomized controlled trial; open-label, not blinded.
- Outcome
- Triglycerides: intervention 180.0 +/- 70.8 -> 170.4 +/- 57.4 mg/dL, within-group P=.016; control 168.4 +/- 63.3 -> 180.5 +/- 51.7 mg/dL, within-group P=.130. The displayed daggered P=.195 is defined as a BETWEEN-GROUP BASELINE comparison, not a treatment-by-time or between-group change test; therefore a clean randomized triglyceride treatment effect was NOT established by the displayed analysis. Waist circumference: favourable within-group signal as reported by FA-049, not a verified randomized between-group effect. Abdominal obesity: not used as positive efficacy evidence — the abstract reports P<.006 while Table 2 gives intervention pre/post categorical P=.266, an unresolved internal source inconsistency. Gut-environment measures: no significant between-group differences reported.
- Evidence maturity (E)
- E2-3+ signal / causal grade unresolved
- Direction
- unresolved — Not assignable / unresolved
- Historical flag (H)
- Not specified at dossier level
- Replication (R)
- R1-2 related evidence
- Claim Gap (CG)
- CG0: Randomized Korean study observed a significant within-group triglyceride reduction during consumption of the specific functional food, but the displayed analysis did not establish a direct between-group change effect. CG1-2: Preliminary human evidence suggests East Asian Wood Ear may influence triglycerides — this is the current claim ceiling. CG3: Wood Ear lowers triglycerides. CG3-4: Auricularia heimuer lowers cholesterol — expands both causal effect and trial-specific taxonomic ownership. CG4: Wood Ear prevents cardiovascular disease.
- Evidence Transfer Vector
- T / I / O / R / P. T: trial-reported A. auricula-judae -> A. heimuer. I: specific functional food -> generic mushroom/product. O: within-group triglyceride movement -> cardiovascular events. R: small programme -> established effect. P: middle-aged/older Korean participants -> general population.
- Taxonomic Transfer Confidence
- Molecularly authenticated Korean cultivated Wood Ear -> A. heimuer: HIGH. Specific 2025 Korean clinical A. auricula-judae -> A. heimuer: MODERATE-HIGH contextually, but not absolute without batch, strain or supplier authentication. European A. auricula-judae -> A. heimuer: NONE — distinct taxa.
- Intervention Transfer Confidence
- Studied functional food -> same characterized product: MODERATE-HIGH. Studied product -> generic A. heimuer powder: LOW-MODERATE. Studied product -> European A. auricula-judae: LOW, requiring both taxonomic and intervention bridges.
- Safety
- S1-2. Extensive culinary exposure is reassuring for ordinary Wood Ear food use, but concentrated/manufactured preparations are not automatically exposure-equivalent.
- Conservation
- C0/C+. Commercial Wood Ear is readily cultivated. C+ also reflects the advantages of authenticated cultivation: known cultivar, substrate, archived culture, repeatable batch and molecular authentication.
- Resolution zone
- RZ-2 / RZ-5
- Next best experiment
- Independent randomized controlled metabolic trial using molecularly authenticated A. heimuer. Deposit culture. Archive intervention material. Record supplier, cultivar and batch. Chemically characterize the product. Prespecify a direct between-group triglyceride contrast as primary endpoint and use an analysis estimating the randomized treatment effect. Monitor diet/co-interventions prospectively. Blind where feasible; otherwise preserve objective laboratory outcomes and blinded outcome handling where possible.
- Primary references
- Son EH, Jung DH, Shin H, et al. Effects of the Intestinal Status and Clinical Factors of Korean Middle-Aged People Through the Consumption of Functional Foods Containing Auricularia auricula-judae Powder: Prospective, Randomized, Open-Label, and Control Comparative Trial. Clinical Nutrition Research. 2025;14(1):7-16. DOI: 10.7762/cnr.2025.14.1.7. PMID: 39968271. PMCID: PMC11832288. ROLE: GRADE-OWNING PRIMARY / RANDOMIZED FUNCTIONAL-FOOD PROGRAMME / HUMAN METABOLIC SIGNAL / STATISTICAL-INTERPRETATION BOUNDARY. Evidence boundary: the triglyceride reduction is significant as an intervention-arm within-group pre/post result; the displayed analysis does NOT establish the required randomized between-group change contrast, so this is not a verified positive randomized triglyceride treatment effect. The paper is titled and described principally as open-label and the manuscript contains inconsistent design wording elsewhere; no upgrade to a securely double-blind trial is made. The abstract versus Table 2 abdominal-obesity inconsistency means abdominal obesity does not own positive efficacy evidence.
- Han JS, Kim JK, Kim AJ. The Effects of Auricularia auricula-judae on Blood Lipids Profile and Bone Density of Middle Aged Abdominal Obese Women. The Korean Journal of Food and Nutrition. 2012;25(4):1075-1080. DOI: 10.9799/ksfan.2012.25.4.1075. ROLE: PRIMARY / RELATED HUMAN METABOLIC EVIDENCE / REPLICATION GENEALOGY. Evidence boundary: 30 women aged 30-50 with abdominal obesity; four-week intervention; Wood Ear consumed with meals versus a control group not consuming Wood Ear; reported serum total cholesterol, LDL-C and triglycerides significantly lower relative to control. This supports related human metabolic evidence. It does NOT constitute clean replication of the 2025 functional-food intervention because intervention format, population, programme, analysis and taxonomic ownership differ.
- Pant N, Noh H, Lee W-H, Kim SH. Genetic Clarification of Auricularia heimuer Strains Bred and Cultivated in Korea Using the ITS and IGS1 rDNA Region Sequences. Mycobiology. 2023;51(2):109-113. DOI: 10.1080/12298093.2023.2182024. PMID: 37122681. PMCID: PMC10142399. ROLE: MOLECULAR TAXONOMY / TTC / TAXONOMIC-LAG CONTEXT. Evidence boundary: ITS and IGS1 rDNA regions were analysed; ITS phylogeny placed all ten examined Korean cultivated/bred strains historically labelled A. auricula-judae within the A. heimuer clade, and A. heimuer was distinguished from A. auricula-judae. This provides strong contextual evidence concerning Korean cultivated Wood Ear taxonomy. It does NOT authenticate the actual Son 2025 clinical batch, and no provenance bridge between the examined strains and the clinical intervention is created.
- Source chapter
- Chapter 22, The Fungal Evidence Atlas