Dear Mark — I’ve heard from a couple of sources that tongkat ali increases semen production. What have you heard? Is this true?
Thanks, Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
Like almost everything else you hear or read on the internet today, the truth is complicated.
It might be a stretch to say it will increase semen production in every person, no matter what their physical condition because sexual health is incredibly complex and there are few absolute yes or no answers.
But if there is anything out there that comes close to an absolute yes, tongkat ali increases semen production may be one of them.
There was a great study in 2012 about this exact question, but before I give you the details let’s cover a question some of our readers might be asking:
What is Tongkat Ali?
Tongkat ali is a tree that grows natively in southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The tree’s roots contain compounds that have been used medicinally for thousands of years.
In the industrial production era, it finds its way into teas, energy drinks, dietary supplements and even coffee.
You might also have heard of tongkat ali by a variety of other names, including longfioloa, longjack, payung ali, Malaysian ginseng, tung say, wonod mondou and umpudumaidu.
Whatever you want to call it, tongkat ali is one of the best supplements for libido and sperm production available.
I tell you that in part because of my own experience over the past decade, but don’t just take my word for it.
Scientists did a Tongkat study a few years back and found an immense positive correlation between tongkat ali and increased semen production.
Here’s how it was conducted…
Step One: Make Girl Rats Horny
A bunch of scientists at the School Of Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Malaysia Science University in Penang, led by Bin-Seng Low, injected a bunch of girl rats with the hormones responsible for putting them into estrus.
Basically, they artificially induced them into heat, making them receptive to mating. We can’t do that with people (the closest equivalent is playing late 1980s Prince albums while giving women wine).
But with rats it’s that easy. The team prepped them for sex to see how male rats responded when given tongkat ali. The results were…interesting.
Step Two: Make a Control Group
The researchers then took 30 male rats and split them into a control group and an experiment group.
The control group were given plain saltwater. The others got pure tongkat ali extract.
They then set up a scenario to find out whether or not tongkat makes a rat hornier than saltwater. Turns out, it did.
Step Three: Give Rats a Choice
Each of the male rats got put in a cage with two doors at the far end.
Behind door number two was a voluptuous female rat all ready for action.
They then tracked how long it took each rat to find and…entertain…the female rat.
The rats given the tongkat got the job done in an average of 145 seconds.
Not a single one of the saline-fed rats made it in under three minutes. That’s an average response time of almost a minute less than the fastest performer from the non-tongkatted rat group.
If that’s not clear indication that this supplement increases sex drive, I’m not sure what is.
Step Four: Test Sperm Counts
Once all the rats had their fun , the scientists then tested the sperm counts of the male rats.
The study doesn’t go into exactly how, and honestly I’m not inclined to speculate, but sperm counts among the rats given tongkat ali were twice as high as the salt water rats. Twice as high.
As the scientists in question wrote in their scientific paper on the research:
“Tongkat Ali has a direct impact on testicular spermatogenesis.”
In English, that means tongkat ali stimulates your body to produce more sperm. Period.
You really can’t get any clearer than this.
I mean, sure, they didn’t run the same test on humans, but lab rats are remarkably similar to people when it comes to this kind of test.
A result like this on them translates to results like this in us.
And I can testify to this personally, as I always experience an obvious increase in ejaculation volume when I dose up on tongkat ali.
This partially explains why this herb was my favorite 10 years ago when I first started testing sex boosters, and it still holds the top spot.
And this is coming from a guy who’s tested dozens and dozens of different supplements over the last decade or so.
Pine pollen comes close, but, tongkat takes the prize in my opinion.
So in answer to your question…
“I hear tongkat ali increases sperm production. Is this true?”
Yes!
And you can really play with dosages with tongkat without worrying too much about negative side effects…
The Malaysia Science University study followed up with tests where rats were given varying amounts of tongkat ali.
Turns out that the higher the doses, the greater the effect. The lab coats did not find a maximum dose for impact, or even a point of diminishing returns…
The more tongkat ali you take, found the experts, the greater its impact on both sperm production and libido, meaning you’ll want sex more, shoot bigger loads and get more out of your sex when you take larger doses.
As for side effects, the only one I discovered was sleep loss…..sleep loss from how much time I was doing other things, especially in the bedroom.
References
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1807%C2%AD59322010000100 014&script=sci_arttext http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874112007775