|
More testosterone after supplementing with surprisingly small amounts of Japanese thyme
On this website we have been writing for decades about plant extracts that should increase testosterone levels. These pieces are usually about animal studies - and this piece about Japanese thyme or Thymus quinquecostatus is no exception. But the special thing about the animal study on which we base ourselves today is the dosage used. It is exceptionally low.
Study
Researchers from the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine made their own water-based extract of Thymus quinquecostatus and gave it to 50-month-old male lab mice daily for 5 weeks. Those mice were quite old.
Just as is the case with humans, old mice produce less testosterone than young ones. The Koreans wondered whether the extract could bring the testosterone levels of the older animals to a 'young' level.
Thymus quinquecostatus is a culinary and medicinal thyme variety that grows wild in Asian countries. In the West, garden centers sell this plant as Japanese thyme.
Results
Supplementation with an extract of Thymus quinquecostatus increased the concentration of testosterone in the old laboratory animals to the level that the researchers found in the young animals. Remarkably, the lowest dose worked just as well as the highest.
The human equivalent of that lowest dose, in the case of an adult man weighing 80 kilos, was approximately 100 milligrams per day. This amount fits in a small capsule.
The extract made a number of genes involved in the synthesis of testosterone and DHT work harder. The strange thing is that the increase was not significant in the low dose - which nevertheless did increase testosterone concentrations. Perhaps the mechanism is slightly different from what the figures above show.
Active phytochemicals
When the researchers found out which substances were in the Thymus quinquecostatus extract, they found, among other things, relatively large amounts of caffeic acid and rosmarinic acid. When they exposed those testicular cells to those two compounds in test tubes, they saw that the combination of caffeic acid and rosmarinic acid increased testosterone release.
Conclusion
"The results obtained in the present study confirmed that Thymus quinquecostatus and its bioactive compounds can be used for late-onset hypogonadism treatment to enhance testosterone production", the researchers conclude.
Source:
Biomed Pharmacother. 2024 May 3:175:116700.
More:
Animal study | Thyme oil increases testosterone levels 15.12.2015
Archives:
Boosting Testosterone
|
