Comment · Thu, November 4, 2021 · ND Owner
Cistanche mechanism
Original post in this thread
Nocasual · 17 points
Can anyone who is knowledgable (I know spelling) tell me the exact mechanism by which cistanche increases testosterone? Will it lower other hormones in the process? Will it lead to some kind of supression after stopping use? Any insight would be much appreciated.
As an anecdote: Tongat Ali (both 2% and 10%) did have a rather negligible or even negative effect on me. Probably because I am already in the healthy range and the lowered estrogen didn't agree with me at all
What they were answering
Thoarke · 5 points
/u/misteryouaresodumb
Thoughts??
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · ND Owner
The lowest dose in that study was 250mg/kg in mice! For the average person when scaled for species, that would be a 2.5 gram does daily for 35 days. That's 10X our recommended dose, and that is their LOWEST dose in the study. The highest dose was 1,000mg/kg. That would be like 10 grams of cistanche a day. Moreover, the lowest dose shows the exact opposite of what they claim in the abstract.
Sperm count stayed the same and sperm motility increased at the 250mg/kg dose. Testosterone did go down slightly, but that is likely a function of large doses. Other studies show increases in testosterone, and even protecting from testicular toxicity.
That was in rats that weigh more, too. So the slightly lower dose, paired with the larger animal size, could be the reason. It's the dose that makes the poison, after all.
This study showed that cistanche protects from hydroyurea-induced testicular damage.
Again, in rats with lower doses. So a single mouse study with large doses found issues. Even in that study there were no real issues at the lowest dose, which is still 10X higher than we recommend. You have multiple other studies showing cistanche protects from testicular toxicity caused by other things.
Here is another study where cistanche protected from testicular toxicity from a different plant.60097-2)
Trying to position all other studies as fraud because of a single Korean study using high doses is just madness. Ahh yes, all those other studies are fraud, not the single one disagreeing. Even then, the low dose group in the Korean study didn't disagree. Sperm count stayed the same and sperm motility INCREASED. This is the evidence to claim that all cistanche is bad, and all good research on it around the world is a fraud?!?