Triterpenes (also called triterpenoids) are fat-soluble compounds made by many plants and fungi. In mushrooms they are best known from reishi. Polysaccharides and triterpenes are the two main groups of active compounds in reishi (Zheng et al., 2020).
What Research Shows
Cell and animal studies report anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and other effects for reishi and its triterpenes (Chan et al., 2021). Human evidence is limited and inconsistent, so these laboratory findings have not yet been confirmed in people.
Getting Them Out
Because triterpenes dissolve poorly in water, they are extracted with alcohol (Zheng et al., 2020). A tea or hot water extract of reishi carries mostly polysaccharides. See Dual Extraction.
References
Chan, S. W., Tomlinson, B., Chan, P., & Lam, C. W. K. (2021). The beneficial effects of Ganoderma lucidum on cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk. Pharmaceutical Biology, 59(1), 1159–1169. https://doi.org/10.1080/13880209.2021.1969413
Zheng, S., Zhang, W., & Liu, S. (2020). Optimization of ultrasonic-assisted extraction of polysaccharides and triterpenoids from the medicinal mushroom Ganoderma lucidum and evaluation of their in vitro antioxidant capacities. PLoS ONE, 15(12), Article e0244749. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244749