On A Wild Yam Chase?

We recently came across a supplement blend that had wild yam extract as a minor ingredient. Our plucky (and usually very knowledgable) researcher had never heard of its use before, so she set about doing her thing. This is what she found…

What health claims are made?

Wild yam extract (Dioscorea villosa) is traditionally sold and used for:

• Balancing hormones
• Combating arthritis
• Anti-aging effects for the skin

Does it balance hormones?

First, as a quick catch-up, we’ll drop a previous article of ours for your convenience:

What Does “Balance Your Hormones” Even Mean?

We couldn’t find almost any studies into wild yam extract’s hormone-balancing effects, but we did find one study, and:

❝Symptom scores showed a minor effect of both placebo and active treatment on diurnal flushing number and severity and total non-flushing symptom scores, and on nocturnal sweating after placebo, but no statistical difference between placebo and active creams.

This study suggests that short-term treatment with topical wild yam extract in women suffering from menopausal symptoms is free of side-effects, but appears to have little effect on menopausal symptoms❞

…which is a very thorough, polite, sciencey way of saying “wow, this does so many different kinds of nothing”

Source: Effects of wild yam extract on menopausal symptoms, lipids and sex hormones in healthy menopausal women

On the one hand, this was a small study (n=23). On the other hand, it was also literally the only study we could find.

Does it combat arthritis?

Maybe! We again didn’t find much research into this but we did find two in vitro studies that suggests that diosgenin (which can be derived from wild yam extract) helps:

• Diosgenin inhibits IL-1β-induced expression of inflammatory mediators in human osteoarthritis chondrocytes
• Diosgenin, a plant steroid, induces apoptosis in human rheumatoid arthritis synoviocytes with cyclooxygenase-2 overexpression

And we also found a rodent study that found that wild yam extract specifically helped against “acetic acid-induced writhing and formalin-induced pain“, and put that down to anti-inflammatory properties:

Read: Bioassay-guided evaluation of Dioscorea villosa – an acute and subchronic toxicity, antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory approach

So, none of these studies tell us much about whether it would be helpful for humans—with or without arthritis, and hopefully without “acetic acid-induced writhing and formalin-induced pain”.

However, they do suggest that it would be reasonable to test in humans next.

You might prefer:

• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Osteoarthritis
• Tips For Avoiding/Managing Rheumatoid Arthritis
• How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation

Does it keep skin young?

Again, research is thin on the ground, but we did find some! A study with wild-yam-derived diosgenin found that it didn’t make anything worse, and otherwise performed a similar role to vitamin A:

Read: Novel effects of diosgenin on skin aging

That was on rats with breast cancer though, so its applicability to healthy humans may be tenuous (while in contrast, simply getting vitamin A instead is a known deal).

Summary

• Does it balance hormones? It probably does little to nothing in this regard
• Does it combat arthritis? It probably has anti-inflammatory effects, but we know of no studies in humans. There are much more well-established anti-inflammatories out there.
• Does it keep the skin young? We know that it performs a role similar to vitamin A for rats with breast cancer, and didn’t make anything worse for them. That’s the extent of what we know.

Where can I get some?

In the unlikely event that the above research review has inspired you with an urge to buy wild yam extract, here is an example product for your convenience.

Some final words…

If you are surprised that we’re really not making any effort to persuade you of its merits, please know that (outside of the clearly-marked sponsor section, which helps us keep the lights on, so please do visit those) we have no interest in selling you anything. We’re genuinely just here to inform 🙂

If you are wondering why we ran this article at all if the supplement has negligible merits, it’s because science is science, knowledge is knowledge, and knowing that something has negligible merit can be good knowledge to have!

Also, running articles like this from time to time helps you to know that when we do sing the praises of something, it’s with good reason

Take care!