Anyone know how safe all these “herbal” supplements are for increasing T/libido? From what I understand, the FDA has no oversight on the safety of these things because they are considered “food supplements,” and not drugs. So, these companies don’t have to prove their products work. Nor do they even have to prove what’s on the label is actually in the bottle (scary)! Some specifics I’m talking about are: Horny Goat Weed, Tribulus, and Maca. I don’t want to take this stuff and have my PSA skyrocket or develop hypertension/heart murmurs.
Tachyarrhythmia and hypomania with horny goat weed.
Gynaecomastia and the plant product “Tribulis terrestris”.
Experimental Tribulus terrestris poisoning in sheep: clinical, laboratory and pathological findings.
Acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitory activity of some Turkish medicinal plants.
[quote]DiogenestheCynic wrote:
Anyone know how safe all these “herbal” supplements are for increasing T/libido? From what I understand, the FDA has no oversight on the safety of these things because they are considered “food supplements,” and not drugs. So, these companies don’t have to prove their products work. Nor do they even have to prove what’s on the label is actually in the bottle (scary)! Some specifics I’m talking about are: Horny Goat Weed, Tribulus, and Maca. I don’t want to take this stuff and have my PSA skyrocket or develop hypertension/heart murmurs.
Tachyarrhythmia and hypomania with horny goat weed.
Gynaecomastia and the plant product “Tribulis terrestris”.
Experimental Tribulus terrestris poisoning in sheep: clinical, laboratory and pathological findings.
Acetylcholinesterase and butyrylcholinesterase inhibitory activity of some Turkish medicinal plants.
New alkamides from maca (Lepidium meyenii).
The FDA doesn’t regulate dietary supplements of any kind, simply because they are not intended to treat or prevent any disease. There are of course cases where the FDA will pull products and so forth, but this is usually after the fact.
I’m not here to defend the horny goat weed nor maca, but in respect to the tribulus, it’s easy to see how someone will misinterpret abstracts. For instance, the case report where a young man reported gynecomastia from tribulus really doesn’t compare to the thousands of case reports of men who have used such products and never had such an occurrence. If the man was pubescent, that would have further increased the likelihood of gynecomastia, but I didn’t see any mention of the age in the abstract.
In respect to the toxicity in sheep, a few key points, the compounds responsible for that are beta-carboline alkaloids. The amount consumed was far beyond what any human would ingest, as the sheep were consuming the tribulus as a large portion of their entire diet. Last, extrapolation across species fron a sheep to a man in terms of dose-related toxicity isn’t accurate.
While I can’t speak for every company, I know that Biotest’s tribulus product contains protodioscin and its’ analogues.