KÄÄPÄ Biotech Maps Chaga Evidence to Ageing Biomarkers in New White Paper
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KÄÄPÄ Biotech and MycoStories have published Beyond Skin Deep, a white paper that maps the evidence on Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) against the twelve Hallmarks of Ageing and finds the current evidence base touches nine of them.
The framework shifts functional mushroom positioning away from surface claims such as skin appearance and energy towards measurable, hallmark-level biomarkers, anchored by an acute human trial of KÄÄPÄ's standardised NordRelease® Chaga extract.
With European rules on botanical health claims now tighter, mechanism-based evidence tied to a defined, standardised ingredient is becoming the basis on which producers can credibly compete.
The market for healthy ageing products is growing faster than the science behind it. Grand View Research values the global longevity and wellness pharmaceutical market at USD 63.4 billion in 2025, with functional mushroom ingredients among its most commercially dynamic segments.
Beyond Skin Deep: A Biomarker Framework for Mushroom-Supported Healthy Ageing, published in October 2026 by KÄÄPÄ Biotech in partnership with MycoStories and reviewed by KÄÄPÄ's Chief Science Officer, Heikki Kiheri, sets out how the sector can close that gap, using Chaga as its working example.
A Higher Bar for Healthy Ageing Claims
The paper's starting point is regulatory. On 30 April 2025, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in Case C-386/23 (Novel Nutriology) that health claims for botanical substances cannot be used commercially without prior authorisation. More than 2,000 pending botanical claim applications are left in limbo under Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006. We read the ruling less as a constraint than as a selection pressure: producers that have built evidence beneath their positioning are likely to find it clarifying.
Two Frameworks, One Biology
To give that evidence a common language, the paper pairs two reference frameworks from geroscience. The 2023 Hallmarks of Ageing review by López-Otín and colleagues in Cell describes twelve interconnected processes of biological decline. Its companion, the 2021 Hallmarks of Health framework by López-Otín and Kroemer, describes eight features of preserved resilience. According to the authors, this dual perspective remains underused in industry content, despite fitting the resilience and adaptive-stress positioning that defines functional mushrooms.
The paper also sorts biomarkers into three tiers: surface markers such as perceived vitality; clinical surrogates such as lipid peroxide, IL-6, CRP and fasting insulin; and upstream hallmark-level biomarkers such as mitochondrial function and senescence burden. Chaga's chemistry is then mapped onto this through four principal bioactive classes: β-glucan-rich polysaccharides, triterpenoids, polyphenols and melanins. One triterpenoid, inotodiol, occurs almost exclusively in Inonotus obliquus, which makes it a natural marker for standardisation.
What the Evidence Map Shows
The paper's central reference, its Bioactive-to-Hallmark Evidence Map, links Chaga to nine of the twelve hallmarks. Oxidative stress has the deepest base: a 2007 randomised controlled trial by Yonei and colleagues in 60 healthy adults reported a 7.89 per cent reduction in serum lipid peroxide at 5 ml per day over eight weeks, alongside significant reductions in blood pressure. In cell and animal work, Chaga extracts suppressed premature senescence in human skin fibroblasts, reduced the matrix-degrading enzymes MMP-1 and MMP-9, and lowered the senescence markers p16, p21 and p53 in UVB-stressed skin cells. Preclinical studies also point to distinct anti-inflammatory roles for polysaccharides and inotodiol, and to early signals on glycation, gut microbiota and glucose metabolism.
The flagship finding is human. In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover study published by Jensen and colleagues in Functional Food Science (2026), four healthy adults received a single dose of KÄÄPÄ's NordRelease® organic Chaga extract, supplied through its North American partner Applied Food Sciences. Circulating endothelial stem cells rose by an average of 36 per cent against placebo, reaching statistical significance at two hours, with a significant rise in circulating pluripotential stem cells at one hour. The extract also supported higher mitochondrial volumes in lymphocytes under oxidative stress. Christine Fields of Applied Food Sciences observes that a response within one to three hours is uncommon among botanicals and even among many drugs, and characterises it as adaptive cellular resilience rather than simple suppression.
Standardisation as the Foundation
That result was possible because the material was defined. Chaga varies with origin, cultivation, sclerotium or mycelium source, and extraction method, so two studies of "Chaga" may be testing different ingredients. KÄÄPÄ's response combines a vertically integrated forest cultivation network in Finland, extracts standardised to defined inotodiol and β-glucan ranges, and an extraction method designed to preserve the full bioactive profile within EU constraints, building on its earlier white paper, Measuring What Matters.
We propose a clear follow up research agenda: powered human trials measuring several hallmark biomarkers in parallel, standardised extract reporting, and separation of effects by bioactive class, sequenced from cell work to an acute study in an ageing population and then an eight-to-twelve-week trial in older adults. Its organising hypothesis is that inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction and stem cell exhaustion form one interlinked system that well-characterised fungi may address together.
