Logic Lion’s Mane, the liquid nootropic from Of The Ancients, now has two human clinical trials behind the extract inside the bottle. The second, a 45-day study published this year, did something rare in the supplement category: it tested the product’s format directly against the format most competitors sell.
It won on the measure nobody was watching.
A category built on patience
Lion’s mane has been sold the same way for most of a decade. Take it daily, wait several months, and hope to notice something. The research supporting that pitch was thin, and most of it had been conducted in people already experiencing cognitive difficulty rather than in healthy adults.
The first trial on the MycoThrive extract used in Logic broke that pattern by asking a different question entirely: what happens in the first two hours?
Researchers at the Center for Applied Health Sciences gave 40 healthy adults a single 1,000 mg dose, then tested them at one hour and again at two. The design was randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover, meaning each participant acted as their own comparison. All 40 completed it.
At the two-hour mark, participants were measurably faster on a working memory task and quicker on a mental arithmetic test than they had been at the start of the session. Scores on a standard happiness questionnaire improved inside the first hour.
The study was published in Nutrients in December 2023. Its authors described it as the first to examine lion’s mane and cognitive performance in healthy adults.
The trial also included a caffeinated comparator, which raised participants’ blood pressure across the session. The lion’s mane did not.
The 45-day trial, and the result that stood out
The newer research ran considerably longer and asked a harder question.
The same laboratory enrolled 87 healthy adults aged 40 to 65 in a 45-day randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, published in the Journal of Translational Science. Participants were divided into three groups taking one gram a day for six weeks.
The first group received the MycoThrive fruiting body extract used in Logic. The second received a commercial mushroom blend made from mycelium and fruiting body, the format that dominates retail shelves. The third received a placebo.
By day 45, the fruiting body group reported significant improvements from their own baseline in day-to-day memory, concentration, mental clarity and focus.
The finding that separated the two active products, however, was microbial rather than cognitive.
Only the fruiting body group showed a significant increase in Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, a gut bacterium and one of the body’s main producers of butyrate, a compound involved in maintaining the intestinal barrier and regulating inflammation. The mycelium blend, at the same daily dose, across the same six weeks, inside the same trial, did not.
Two products carrying the same species name on the label. One moved it.
Why the format question matters
A mushroom has two distinct stages. The fruiting body is the visible mushroom. The mycelium is the root-like network beneath it, and in commercial production it is typically grown on grain such as rice or oats.
At harvest, the mycelium and its growing medium cannot be fully separated. Independent testing has repeatedly identified products in which a substantial share of the contents is starch from the substrate rather than mushroom. Because starch is itself a polysaccharide, a label advertising a high polysaccharide percentage can be technically accurate while describing mostly grain.
The compounds most closely associated with lion’s mane cognitive research, hericenones, concentrate in the fruiting body. Erinacines, a related group, appear mainly in mycelium. The two stages are chemically distinct.
That argument has circulated among formulators for years on chemistry alone. The 45-day trial is the first controlled human comparison in which the distinction produced a measurably different biological outcome.
The company revised its own claims
In both trials, the reported improvements were measured against each participant’s own starting point. Neither study showed the extract separating significantly from placebo across the primary cognitive measures, a limitation that applies to a great deal of published supplement research and is rarely disclosed by the brands citing it.
Of The Ancients disclosed it, and went further. After reviewing the published papers, the company removed language from its own website that had described improvements over placebo, revised several product claims, and rebuilt its evidence page to state what each study failed to find alongside what it found.
“We had language on our pages that the research could not support, so we took it down. I would rather lose a sale to a competitor making a bolder claim than defend a sentence I cannot stand behind.”
The statement is attributed to Anthony Gucciardi, founder of Of The Ancients.
Both studies now appear with full citations, stated limitations, and a funding disclosure noting that the first trial was supported in part by the ingredient supplier, on the company’s clinical evidence page.
Formulation and published claims are additionally reviewed for scientific accuracy by an independent panel led by a physician with 42 years in clinical practice, documented on a separate scientific review page.
What is in the bottle
Logic is built around MycoThrive, a standardized lion’s mane extract produced by Applied Food Sciences. It is 100% fruiting body, sourced from Finland, and standardized to beta-glucans so each serving delivers a consistent amount of the marker compounds rather than whatever a given batch happened to contain.
It is also a liquid extract made in vegetable glycerin rather than alcohol. Most herbal tinctures use alcohol because it is inexpensive and efficient at drawing compounds out of plant material. Glycerin extraction is slower and more costly, but produces a formula that can be added to coffee or water without the characteristic burn, and without alcohol in a daily supplement.
A daily serving provides 970 mg, taken as two doses. Both clinical trials used 1,000 mg per day of the powdered form, a difference the company states on its product pages rather than rounding away.
For buyers weighing options
Four questions separate a rigorously made lion’s mane product from an expensive one, regardless of brand. Does the label specify fruiting body, or only the species name? Is a beta-glucan percentage stated, rather than a total polysaccharide figure? Is the material an extract or a raw powder, given that mushroom cell walls are built from chitin and resist human digestion without extraction? And is a certificate of analysis available matching the lot number on the bottle?
Larger and longer trials on lion’s mane remain necessary, a point the researchers behind both studies made directly.
Logic Lion’s Mane is available from Of The Ancients.
Sources
La Monica MB, Raub B, Ziegenfuss EJ, et al. “Acute Effects of Naturally Occurring Guayusa Tea and Nordic Lion’s Mane Extracts on Cognitive Performance.” Nutrients. 2023;15(24):5018. doi:10.3390/nu15245018
Center for Applied Health Sciences. 45-day randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of MycoThrive Lion’s Mane. Journal of Translational Science.
Disclosure: Of The Ancients was founded by Anthony Gucciardi, publisher of this site. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Consult a healthcare professional before starting any supplement.
