Does Ginseng Increase Testosterone Levels?

❓ Q&A With 10almonds Subscribers!

Q: You talked about spearmint as reducing testosterone levels, what about ginseng for increasing them?

A: Hormones are complicated and often it’s not a simple matter of higher or lower levels! It can also be a matter of…

• how your body converts one thing into another
• how your body responds (or not) to something according to how the relevant hormone’s receptors are doing
• …and whether there’s anything else blocking those receptors.

All this to say: spearmint categorically is an anti-androgen, but the mechanism of action remains uncertain.

Panax ginseng, meanwhile, is one of the most well-established mysteries in herbal medicine.

Paradoxically, it seems to improve both male and female hormonal regulation, despite being more commonly associated with the former.

• It doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease testosterone or estrogen levels (but it can, even if indirectly)
• It does improve sexual function
• …and alleviates symptoms associated with conditions as varied as:
  • Late-onset hypogonadism (common for men during the andropause)
  • Benign prostate hyperplasia (again common for men during the andropause)
  • …and also counteracts unwanted side-effects of finasteride. Finasteride is often taken by men as a hair loss remedy or, less often but critically, in the case of an enlarged prostate.

But it also…

• Alleviates symptoms of PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome, which effects around 20% of women)
• May even be an effective treatment for PCOS (rat model only so far)
• It also may improve female reproductive fertility more generally (the studies are down to fruit flies now though)

Bottom line: Panax ginseng is popularly taken to improve natural hormone function, a task at which it appears to excel.

Scientists are still working out exactly how it does the many things it appears to do.

Progress has been made, and it clearly is science rather than witchcraft, but there are still far more unanswered questions than resolved ones!