Tongkat Ali has no effect on prostate

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12.07.2013

Tongkat Ali supplementation boosts testosterone concentration, in both animal and human studies, and it enhances libido too. These effects of a supplement might make you wary of typical androgenic side effects, such as prostate enlargement or shrinking of the testes. No need to worry, say researchers at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
Tongkat Ali supplementation boosts testosterone concentration, in both animal and human studies, and it enhances libido too. These effects of a supplement might make you wary of typical androgenic side effects, such as prostate enlargement or shrinking of the testes. No need to worry, say researchers at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

In their animal study, published in Andrologia, the researchers gave adult male rats 200 or 400 g Tongkat Ali extract per kg bodyweight every day for 14 days. The researchers used Physta extract, a product made by their sponsor, Biotropics Malaysia. The supplement was administered orally.

The doses used, if converted to human proportions, were astronomic and would probably therefore be dangerous. The human equivalent of the low dose would be 3-4 g Tongkat Ali extract per day; the high dose would be a whopping 12-16 g per day. Don't try this at home, folks.

In their study the researchers looked mainly at the lab animals' sperm quality. This improved on all counts as a result of Tongkat Ali supplementation. The concentration of sperm increased, and they were more robust, more mobile and had fewer mitochondrial abnormalities.

The animals lost a little weight as a result of supplementation and also lost some abdominal fat [Omentum fat]. Although the rats that were given the high dose of Tongkat Ali lost almost a third of their abdominal fat, the effect was not statistically significant.

Tongkat Ali supplementation boosts testosterone concentration, in both animal and human studies, and it enhances libido too. These effects of a supplement might make you wary of typical androgenic side effects, such as prostate enlargement or shrinking of the testes. No need to worry, say researchers at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

Tongkat Ali supplementation boosts testosterone concentration, in both animal and human studies, and it enhances libido too. These effects of a supplement might make you wary of typical androgenic side effects, such as prostate enlargement or shrinking of the testes. No need to worry, say researchers at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.

At the lower dose of Tongkat Ali, no effect on the testosterone level was observed during the 14 weeks that the study lasted; at the higher dose the testosterone level rose by 30.2 percent. An effect like that might cause you to worry about androgenic side effects, but the graph below shows that they are conspicuous by their absence.

At the end of the 14 days the prostate [Pros] was a little smaller in both the rats that had been given the 200-mg dose [LD] and the rats that had been given the 400-mg dose [HD] than in the control animals [Ctrl]. The same was the case for the seminal vesicles [Epid]. The animals' testes [Test] did not shrink as a result of the supplementation.

Click on the figure above for a larger version.

Therapeutic doses of Tongkat Ali are generally around a few hundred milligrams per day. If the mega-doses used in this animal study don't cause androgenic side effects, then therapeutic doses are not likely to cause them either, write the researchers.

"Taken together, this makes this traditional remedy an alternative option in treating and managing idiopathic male infertility", the South Africans conclude. "Given the observed testosterone-enhancing effects in the present study, Tongkat Ali may further provide relief to seniors suffering from ageing males' symptoms, thereby improving the quality of life of these patients."

Source:
Andrologia. 2013 Mar 6. doi: 10.1111/and.12082. [Epub ahead of print].

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The effect of Tongkat Ali on healthy men 10.07.2013
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