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BUSINESS SECRETS WEEKLY

Lionberry’s Weekly Delusion and Re-Illusion Update

THE BOTTOM LINE — FOR THOSE WHO DON’T READ THE WHOLE THING:

You did not gain this weight on purpose. And you are not lazy. Your biology is working against you and the pharmaceutical industry figured that out before your doctor did.

Maybe you are on Ozempic. Maybe you are on Wegovy or Rybelsus — same drug, semaglutide, different name on the box. Maybe you switched to tirzepatide — Mounjaro for diabetes, Zepbound for weight loss — because it works better and your doctor said so and they are right, it does. Maybe you are watching retatrutide come through clinical trials right now, the triple agonist hitting GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon all at once, and you are waiting for it because nothing has been enough yet.

Or maybe you went off one of these drugs and the weight came back and you are furious. Or you never wanted a needle in the first place. Or you are watching the bill every month and doing math you do not like.

Or you are just tired. Tired of the afternoon crash. The brain fog. The blood sugar swings. The feeling that your body is running against you no matter what you do.

You are not alone. And you are not out of options.

There is a berry that has been growing in the dirt of the American Midwest for centuries. Farmers knew it. Grandmothers knew it. Scientists are now catching up. Washington State University published a clinical trial showing that elderberry juice — real juice, not a capsule, not a powder, not a gummy — reduced blood glucose by 24%, dropped insulin levels by 9%, and increased fat oxidation by 27%. In one week.

The mechanism supports your body’s own GLP-1 response — the same hormone every drug on that list was designed to mimic. Not because someone engineered elderberry to do that. Because that is what the plant does.

The prebiotic power of elderberry is not new information. It has been known — in farming communities, in food science, in microbiome research — for years. Then the peer-reviewed, statistically significant, USDA-funded clinical trial came out of Washington State University and made it official. The internet, in its infinite wisdom, kept scrolling past a peer-reviewed USDA-funded clinical trial to watch someone unbox supplements on TikTok.

What the category still does not have is a functional beverage actually built around this science — fresh-pressed, farm-grown, anthocyanins intact. Not a supplement. A drink.

The research never went away. The conversation is just finally catching up.

Berberine is getting the “nature’s Ozempic” headline. Berberine is in a capsule. Elderberry is a fresh-pressed fruit with intact anthocyanins — grown in the dirt of the American Midwest — and nobody is talking about it.

That last part matters. A lot. We’ll get there.

The GLP-1 Conversation Got Hijacked. Twice.

First, pharmaceuticals hijacked it. Semaglutide showed up, the world lost its mind, and suddenly every conversation about metabolic health ran through a needle.

Then berberine hijacked it. “Nature’s Ozempic,” they called it. Fair enough — berberine has real research behind it and genuine metabolic effects. But berberine comes in a capsule. It is an extracted, concentrated supplement. It is not food. It is not a drink. It is not something you pour into your day.

Elderberry has not been sitting quietly. The science has been building for years. The mainstream conversation just has not caught up yet.

That is starting to change.

1. WHAT THE STUDY ACTUALLY FOUND

In January 2025, researchers at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine published the results of a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover trial in the journal Nutrients. Lead researcher Patrick Solverson, assistant professor of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology at WSU, designed the trial specifically to test 100% elderberry juice against a flavor and sugar-matched placebo — meaning participants couldn’t tell which one they were drinking, and the sugar content was controlled so the results couldn’t be explained away by sweetness alone.

Eighteen overweight adults. One week of elderberry juice. Here is what happened:

Blood glucose dropped 24%. After a high-carbohydrate meal challenge, participants who had been drinking elderberry juice processed sugar significantly better than when they drank the placebo. Not a little better. 24% better.

Insulin levels dropped 9%. Lower insulin means the body is managing glucose more efficiently. Insulin reduction precedes fat loss. This is not a trivial number.

Fat oxidation increased 27%. Participants burned more fat — both at rest and during exercise — when consuming elderberry juice. The body shifted toward burning fat as a fuel source instead of storing it.

Gut bacteria changed meaningfully. Beneficial bacterial species increased. Harmful ones decreased. The microbiome shifted toward a profile associated with better metabolic health in one week.

Solverson’s own words: “Elderberry is an underappreciated berry, commercially and nutritionally. We’re now starting to recognize its value for human health, and the results are very exciting.”

That is a researcher who has spent years on this data saying out loud that elderberry has been underestimated.

He is correct.

2. THE MECHANISM — WHY THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE

This is the part the headlines skip. They print the numbers and move on. The numbers are impressive, but the mechanism is the story.

Here is what is actually happening inside your body when you drink elderberry juice with intact anthocyanins:

Elderberry is extraordinarily dense in a specific class of compounds called cyanidin-based anthocyanins. These are the deep purple pigments that give the berry its color. They are bioactive. They are not decoration.

When those anthocyanins reach your gut, they become prebiotic fuel. They feed specific strains of beneficial bacteria — including Bifidobacterium and Akkermansia — that produce short-chain fatty acids as a byproduct of fermentation.

Those short-chain fatty acids — butyrate, propionate, acetate — do several things. They reduce inflammation in fat tissue. They improve insulin sensitivity. And critically: they directly stimulate L-cells in the lining of your gut to secrete GLP-1.

GLP-1. Glucagon-like peptide-1. The hormone semaglutide was engineered to mimic.

Your gut makes it naturally. Elderberry anthocyanins tell it to make more.

This is not a supplement claim. This is documented biochemistry published in a peer-reviewed journal funded by the United States Department of Agriculture.

The plant supports your body’s natural GLP-1 response. From the inside out. Through the microbiome. Through food.

3. THE PROCESSING PROBLEM NOBODY TALKS ABOUT

Here is where most elderberry products fail — and why the science in this study does not automatically apply to everything with “elderberry” on the label.

The anthocyanins are the active compounds. They are what drives the GLP-1 mechanism. They are what produced the 24% blood glucose reduction in the WSU trial.

Anthocyanins are heat-sensitive.

Most elderberry products on the market — syrups, gummies, capsules, powders — are processed at high heat for extended periods. It is cheaper. It is faster. It kills pathogens. It also destroys a significant portion of the anthocyanins in the process. You are left with a product that tastes like elderberry, looks like elderberry, and has almost none of the bioactive compounds that make elderberry worth anything metabolically.

The elderberry category has an overcooked problem. The plant gets blamed for the processing failure. People try elderberry syrup, feel nothing metabolic, and write off the whole category.

The fix is not complicated. Fresh-pressed elderberry with pH dropped immediately using tart cherry — not heat, not extended cooking — and processed at 164°F for 45 seconds. Enough to be safe. Not enough to torch the anthocyanins. That is the standard any elderberry product making metabolic claims should be held to.

What was in the WSU study was juice. Not a powder. Not a gummy. Not a capsule. Not a syrup. Fresh-pressed juice with the compounds intact — because that is the only form that produced these results.

4. THE GLP-1 OFF-RAMP — METABOLIC SUPPORT IN THE POST-APPETITE ERA

WSU is not done with this research.

With additional funding from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the research team is now exploring a specific follow-on question: can elderberry help people maintain weight loss and metabolic stability after discontinuing GLP-1 medications?

This is the question millions of people are about to need answered.

GLP-1 drugs work. They also cost $1,000 a month, require a weekly injection, and when people stop taking them — the weight comes back. The metabolic reset doesn’t hold without support. The gut microbiome that was doing work under the drug needs something to keep feeding it.

Elderberry’s anthocyanins feed the bacteria that produce the SCFAs that trigger endogenous GLP-1 production. That is a natural, food-based mechanism for supporting the same pathway the drug was doing pharmacologically.

This is the white space in the GLP-1 conversation right now. Three audiences, all underserved: people coming off GLP-1 medications who need metabolic support to maintain their results. People who do not want to start them and are looking for a food-based path. And people who simply want daily metabolic support — something that feeds the biology instead of overriding it.

That is the post-appetite economy. And food brands that understand it are going to matter.

5. WHY BERBERINE IS NOT THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION

Berberine deserves its moment. It has real research. It works through a different mechanism — AMPK activation — and has genuine effects on blood sugar and metabolism.

But berberine is not food. It is a concentrated plant extract in a capsule because the dose required for efficacy is not achievable through diet. It does not feed your gut microbiome. It does not stimulate GLP-1 through the SCFA pathway. It works around the food system, not through it.

The “nature’s Ozempic” framing was always the wrong lens. The question is not which plant mimics a drug. The question is which food supports the biology the drug was designed to target.

Elderberry’s GLP-1 effect is mechanistically specific. It runs through the microbiome. It is amplified by the prebiotic fiber in the berry. It works the way food is supposed to work — by feeding the systems your body already has.

That is a different category. That is a better story. And it has been sitting in a peer-reviewed journal for over a year waiting for someone to tell it.

THE BOTTOM LINE — ONE MORE TIME

Elderberry has a randomized controlled trial showing 24% blood glucose reduction, 9% insulin drop, and 27% fat oxidation increase in one week. The mechanism supports the body’s natural GLP-1 response via gut microbiome stimulation. The research is funded by the USDA. The lead researcher at WSU is now studying whether elderberry can support people coming off GLP-1 medications.

The post-appetite economy is here. By 2030, 35% of American households will have someone on a GLP-1 drug. What happens alongside those drugs — and after them — is the conversation the food industry has not had yet.

Elderberry just handed it a place to start.

RESEARCH CITATIONS

Because we didn’t make this up.

[1] Solverson et al. (2024). A One-Week Elderberry Juice Intervention Augments the Fecal Microbiota and Suggests Improvement in Glucose Tolerance and Fat Oxidation in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients, Vol. 16, No. 20, Article 3555. DOI: 10.3390/nu16203555. https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/16/20/3555

[2] WSU Press Release (January 2025). Elderberry Juice Shows Benefits for Weight Management, Metabolic Health. Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. https://medicine.wsu.edu/news/2025/01/09/elderberry-juice-benefits/

[3] Tremaroli V, Bäckhed F. (2012). Functional interactions between the gut microbiota and host metabolism. Nature, 489, 242–249. DOI: 10.1038/nature11552

[4] Tolhurst G et al. (2012). Short-Chain Fatty Acids Stimulate Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Secretion via the G-Protein–Coupled Receptor FFAR2. Diabetes, 61(2), 364–371. DOI: 10.2337/db11-1019

LionBerry Regenerative

Facebook & Instagram: @lionberry

Business Secrets Weekly drops every Sunday at www.lionberry.us

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BUSINESS SECRETS WEEKLY

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

LionBerry’s Weekly Delusion & Re-Illusion Update

Lion’s Mane Mushroom Powder in Your Coffee Isn’t Lifting Your Brain Fog.

Welcome to Health Food Washing 101: Where Marketing Is the Science and the Label Is the Proof. If It’s on the Label, It Must Be True???

THE BOTTOM LINE — FOR THOSE WHO DON’T READ THE WHOLE THING:

Lion’s mane mushroom contains two bioactive compounds — hericenones and erinacines — that tell your brain to repair itself, grow new neurons, and cut through brain fog. Erinacine A is currently the most highly researched compound in the world for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. These compounds are alcohol-soluble. They cannot be released by hot water. Coffee is hot water. This means every lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market — regardless of what the bag promises — is delivering zero of these brain compounds to your brain. Zero. The powder passes through you untouched.

The only way to get hericenones and erinacines out of the mushroom and into your body is a dual extraction: alcohol AND water, from the fruiting body of the mushroom. That’s what LionBerry uses. That’s the difference between a product that performs and a product that just looks like it should.

Dual extract = the actual brain compounds, bioavailable, crossing the blood-brain barrier, reaching your brain.

And here’s the part nobody mentions: adding a liquid extract to your coffee is not harder than stirring in a powder. It is not a chore. It is not a complicated ritual. It is a dropper in a cup. There is no reason to choose powder over extract. None. The extract does what the powder only pretends to do, and it takes exactly the same amount of effort to use.

Buy whatever coffee you love. Put LionBerry in it instead.

There is a product sitting in your grocery store, your local market, and your favorite wellness shop. It comes in a beautiful bag. It says “clean label.” It says “no added sugars.” It says “gluten friendly.” It might say “adaptogenic.” It almost certainly says “lion’s mane mushroom” in large letters, because lion’s mane is having a moment, and moments sell product.

Ryze. Four Sigmatic. Every white-label mushroom powder coffee that appeared overnight when the trend hit.

What none of them say — anywhere on that bag, in that Instagram post, or in that influencer’s sixty-second testimonial — is this:

The lion’s mane in here is dried mushroom powder. It cannot reach your brain. It will not lift your brain fog. The focus you feel is caffeine. It was always just the caffeine.

That part didn’t make the label.

This is health food washing. The wellness industry’s version of greenwashing, where the language of real clinical function gets borrowed by products that cannot perform that function. Slap enough clean-sounding words on a package and the product inherits the credibility of the real thing without doing the work of the real thing. “Focus.” “Clarity.” “Neurogenesis.” “Lift the brain fog.” All words that live in the same neighborhood as lion’s mane research. None of them accurate when the lion’s mane in question is dried powder dissolved in hot water.

It’s not lying, exactly. It’s just letting you believe something that isn’t true and charging you a premium for the privilege.

The lion’s mane conversation got hijacked by powder.

And lion’s mane is not the first casualty of this. Elderberry has the same problem. People process it into a syrup so aggressively overcooked that the anthocyanins — the actual anti-inflammatory compounds that make elderberry worth anything — get burned off entirely in the heat. Then people try it, feel nothing, and elderberry gets a reputation problem it didn’t earn. The plant isn’t the failure. The processing is the failure. The label never mentions the processing. The category takes the hit.

Lion’s mane is heading down the same road.

Here’s what the bag won’t tell you, but the science will.

1. WHAT IS ACTUALLY IN LION’S MANE MUSHROOM?

Lion’s mane (Hericium erinaceus) contains two classes of bioactive terpenes: HERICENONES and ERINACINES. Both trigger production of NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) and BDNF (Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor) — the chemical signals that tell your brain to repair, regrow, and rebuild.

These are the compounds behind focus, clarity, neurogenesis, and actually cutting through brain fog. Not vibes. Not marketing. Chemistry.

Hericenones are aromatic terpenes extracted from the fruiting body of the mushroom. They stimulate NGF biosynthesis directly in brain cells — sending the signal for neurons to repair, regenerate, and reconnect. They are low molecular weight compounds, which means they cross the blood-brain barrier. They reach your brain. Not just your bloodstream. Your actual brain.

Hericenones are the brain repair signal. Most supplements never make it past your gut. Hericenones do.

Erinacines are diterpenoids from the mycelium. They also stimulate NGF synthesis. Erinacine A is the single most researched compound in the world right now for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. Also low molecular weight. Also crosses the blood-brain barrier.

Both are in this bottle. Both are doing work.

Neither one does anything for your brain unless they have been properly extracted. That is the entire problem. That is the only problem. And that is exactly where every lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market is failing you.

2. THE BRAIN FOG IS STILL THERE. IT’S JUST MORE EXPENSIVE NOW.

Here’s what actually matters, and what the label will never tell you:

Hericenones and erinacines are alcohol-soluble terpenes.

Not water-soluble.

Alcohol-soluble.

Every popular lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee on the market mixes dried powdered lion’s mane into coffee — which is hot water. Hot water cannot extract alcohol-soluble compounds. This is not an opinion. This is basic chemistry.

Hericenones and erinacines are alcohol-soluble terpenes. Coffee is hot water. Hot water cannot touch them.

Those terpenes stay locked inside the chitin cell wall of the dried mushroom powder. Chitin is the same material as crab shells. Your gut does not have the enzymes to break it down. It was not built for it.

The lion’s mane mushroom powder passes through you completely intact. Completely inert. Your brain never saw it.

So the powder dissolves into your cup, looks like something is happening, and exits your body exactly the same way it came in. Untouched. Unabsorbed. Unbothered.

Expensive and unbothered.

What you DO feel from lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee? That’s caffeine. Caffeine genuinely works — caffeine feels like focus, your brain interprets it as clarity, and for a few weeks, maybe a few months, you think the lion’s mane is doing something. The brain associates the ritual with the result. The placebo is real enough to feel like progress.

It’s not the lion’s mane. It was never the lion’s mane. That’s just Tuesday morning with coffee.

Then the caffeine stops being novel. The placebo wears off. You’re right back to losing your keys and walking into rooms and forgetting why you went in there.

And now lion’s mane has a reputation problem it didn’t earn. The powder failed you. The extract never got a chance. The whole category takes the hit — and every product with “lion’s mane” on the label, including the ones that are actually extracted properly and actually work, gets written off as hype.

That’s the damage. Not just to LionBerry. To the entire conversation about what lion’s mane can actually do.

⚠️ LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER IN YOUR COFFEE = YOU ARE PAYING FOR PLACEBO ⚠️

3. WHAT LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER GIVES YOU — AND WHAT IT ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT

What you get ZERO of from dried lion’s mane mushroom powder:

✗ Hericenones — locked in chitin, not bioavailable, not reaching your brain

✗ Erinacines — same problem, same chitin wall, same result

✗ NGF induction — not happening

✗ BDNF induction — not happening

✗ Neurogenesis — no

✗ Dendritic regrowth — no

✗ Myelin sheath support — no

✗ Focus — not from the lion’s mane

✗ Clarity — not from the lion’s mane

✗ Cutting through brain fog — absolutely not

If you bought lion’s mane mushroom powder coffee for focus, clarity, and lifting brain fog — you got the immune product with brain health branding. That is not science. That is health food washing. Great product. Wrong label. Wrong promises.

Powder does contain beta-glucans, which support immune function, gut health, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Those are real benefits. But nobody is buying mushroom coffee for their cholesterol. And there is no reason — not one — to choose a powder that cannot deliver the brain benefits over a liquid extract that can. A dropper in your coffee takes exactly the same effort as stirring in a powder. The extract does what the powder cannot. This is not a hard choice.

4. BUY WHATEVER COFFEE YOU LOVE. PUT THIS IN IT INSTEAD.

For the actual brain benefits — neurogenesis, dendritic regrowth, myelin sheath protection, NGF and BDNF induction, real focus, real clarity, actual brain fog obliteration — you need a dual extract: alcohol AND water, from the fruiting body of the mushroom.

The alcohol pulls the hericenones and erinacines out of the chitin cell wall and into a bioavailable form. The water captures the beta-glucans. Your brain gets what it was promised. Your immune system gets the bonus.

The alcohol pulls the brain compounds out. The water gets the immune compounds. You need both. That’s what a dual extract is.

Both hericenones and erinacines are low molecular weight compounds. They cross the blood-brain barrier. They actually reach your brain — not just your bloodstream. Your brain.

Most supplements never get past your gut. These do.

LionBerry uses a dual extract — alcohol and water — from the fruiting body of the mushroom, because that is the only way to get hericenones and erinacines out of the chitin wall and into a form your body can absorb and your brain can use. It costs more to do it this way. It takes longer. It cannot be scaled by cutting corners.

We don’t cut corners. Not because it’s easy. Because the lion’s mane in this bottle is supposed to do what lion’s mane is supposed to do.

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ NGF/BDNF induction

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ neurogenesis

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ myelin sheath protection

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ dendritic regrowth

LION’S MANE MUSHROOM POWDER COFFEE ≠ lifting the brain fog

It does taste good though. We’ll give it that.

5. WHAT A DUAL EXTRACT ACTUALLY DELIVERS

✓ Hericenones → NGF/BDNF stimulation → brain repair and rebuild signal activated

✓ Erinacines → NGF synthesis → neuroregeneration and neuroprotection

✓ Blood-brain barrier penetration — low molecular weight, actually reaches your brain

✓ Neurogenesis — growth of new neurons

✓ Dendritic regrowth — rebuilding the connections between neurons

✓ Myelin sheath support → nerve conduction, reaction time, sustained focus

✓ Actual brain fog relief — the real kind, not the caffeine kind

✓ Beta-glucans → immune and gut benefits included

✓ Bioavailability guaranteed — extraction breaks the chitin wall so your body can actually absorb it

Real extraction.

Real bioavailability.

Real compounds reaching your actual brain.

Zero powdered fantasy.

Brain repair. Nerve growth. Immune support. Gut health. One bottle. Properly extracted so your body can actually use it. Revolutionary concept, we know.

Buy whatever coffee you love.

Put this in it instead.

RESEARCH CITATIONS

Because we didn’t make this up.

[1] Ma et al. (2010). Hericenones and erinacines: NGF biosynthesis stimulators. Mycology — DOI: 10.1080/21501201003735556

[2] Kawagishi et al. (1991). Hericenones C, D and E, NGF synthesis stimulators. Tetrahedron Letters

[3] Friedman M. (2015). Chemistry, Nutrition, and Health-Promoting Properties of Hericium erinaceus. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry — DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5b02914

[4] Ratto et al. (2022). Hericerin derivatives and pan-neurotrophic pathway activation in hippocampal neurons. Journal of Neurochemistry — DOI: 10.1111/jnc.15767

[5] PMC Narrative Review (2024). Lion’s Mane: A Neuroprotective Fungus. PMC — pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12030463

[6] Phan et al. (2014). Hericenones and NGF-mediated neurite outgrowth via MEK/ERK and PI3K-Akt signaling. Food & Function — DOI: 10.1039/c4fo00031e

[7] Restorative Medicine Monograph — Lion’s Mane comprehensive review. Restorative Medicine — restorativemedicine.org/library/monographs/lions-mane

LionBerry Regenerative

Facebook & Instagram: @lionberry

Business Secrets Weekly drops every Sunday at www.lionberry.us