**7. Conclusions**

Although there is a higher and more favorable medicinal value in traditional medicines such as *Cordyceps sinensis*, the limitations should be considered as well in order to reveal its undiscovered potential of treating lipid-related diseases. However, as the availability of *Cordyceps sinensis* is gradually being decreased in the West, care should be taken when meeting the consumer demands, especially when it comes to the cultivation and growth of the herb. Moreover, as the natural *Cordyceps sinensis* is becoming rare, methods are in the process of being developed for the artificial production of this fungus with the same chemical constituents or even better. The world is now awakening to the importance of this fungus, and the price factor appears to play an important role in the marketplace. A lot of research is still pending on this fungus especially from the medical side. With the present research nevertheless, it is noteworthy that *Cordyceps sinensis* has been identified

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**Author details**

Kanchana Samarasinghe and Viduranga Y. Waisundara\*

\*Address all correspondence to: viduranga@gmail.com

provided the original work is properly cited.

Australian College of Business and Technology—Kandy Campus, Kandy, Sri Lanka

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,

*Therapeutic Properties and Anti-Lipidemic Activity of* Cordyceps sinensis

as a traditional medicine which is able to regulate lipid levels and demonstrated anti-lipidemic activity. Cordycepin appears to be an important bioactive compound

elucidate more bioactive compounds existing in *Cordyceps sinensis* which are able to collectively involve in lipid metabolism and regulation. The potency of *Cordyceps sinensis* would highly depend on its chemical constituents, viz., the cordycepin and polysaccharides that make up the fruiting body, mycelium, or spores. However, further experimental, epidemiological, and clinical studies are needed to identify other molecular targets, resolve the relationships between *Cordyceps sinensis* intake and anti-lipidemic activity, and explore the optimum dosing, efficacy, and safety alone and in combination with existing anti-cholesterolemic and anti-

The authors wish to thank the Australian College of Business & Technology,

Kandy Campus, for the facilities provided to put this write-up together.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest, financial, or otherwise.

in this aspect, and it is without a doubt that further research will be able to

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92616*

triglyceridemic pharmaceutical therapies.

**Acknowledgements**

**Conflict of interest**

*Therapeutic Properties and Anti-Lipidemic Activity of* Cordyceps sinensis *DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92616*

as a traditional medicine which is able to regulate lipid levels and demonstrated anti-lipidemic activity. Cordycepin appears to be an important bioactive compound in this aspect, and it is without a doubt that further research will be able to elucidate more bioactive compounds existing in *Cordyceps sinensis* which are able to collectively involve in lipid metabolism and regulation. The potency of *Cordyceps sinensis* would highly depend on its chemical constituents, viz., the cordycepin and polysaccharides that make up the fruiting body, mycelium, or spores. However, further experimental, epidemiological, and clinical studies are needed to identify other molecular targets, resolve the relationships between *Cordyceps sinensis* intake and anti-lipidemic activity, and explore the optimum dosing, efficacy, and safety alone and in combination with existing anti-cholesterolemic and antitriglyceridemic pharmaceutical therapies.
