Shilajit and Hormones: The Testosterone Trial, the Fertility Study and the Research on Women

Of everything shilajit is sold for, the claim that travels furthest is that it raises testosterone. It appears on product pages, in men's health articles and in fitness forums, usually with a number attached, and usually with the impression that the number describes what will happen to you. A quieter question sits beside it: is shilajit any use for women? Product pages increasingly say yes, and then offer very little to support the claim. This guide goes through the research behind both questions in detail. It covers the one trial behind the testosterone claim, a systematic review that placed shilajit among dozens of failed testosterone boosters, the small fertility study, what is known about erections and libido, and everything we could find on shilajit and women. It shows which numbers come from the original abstracts and which come from summaries, and it corrects several details that were wrong on our earlier pages.

This is one of five connected guides. The complete guide gives the overview of all the human studies, the dosage guide covers what was given, and the safety guide covers what could go wrong.

Why testosterone is such an easy claim to sell

Testosterone is the main male sex hormone, and it declines with age, which makes "boosting" it an appealing idea for men in middle age. The best long-term data come from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, which measured testosterone in stored samples from 890 men. Published in 2001 by Harman and colleagues, it found independent, age-related declines in both total and free testosterone, with an average change of about 0.124 nanomoles per litre per year in total testosterone. Using total testosterone criteria, the proportion of men with hypogonadal levels rose to about 20% of men over 60, 30% over 70 and 50% over 80. Figure 1 shows the pattern.

Two points from the chart matter for a shopper. First, the numbers describe men over 60, 70 and 80, not men "over 40", so the "40 and over" framing common in shilajit marketing, including on our own product page, reflects the general fact that testosterone tends to fall with age, not a threshold that any shilajit trial tested. Second, even at 80, half of men did not have low levels. A supplement marketed to a broad group of middle-aged men is aimed at many people who have normal testosterone.

How low testosterone is actually diagnosed

The American Urological Association's 2018 guideline on testosterone deficiency states that the diagnosis should be made only after two total testosterone measurements on separate occasions, both taken in the early morning. It uses a total testosterone below 300 ng/dL as a reasonable cut-off and says the clinical diagnosis of testosterone deficiency requires low levels together with symptoms or signs. It also advises using the same laboratory and method where possible. The message is that a single reading, especially a home test taken at a random time, is not a diagnosis, and that a hormone number without symptoms is not a disease. Anyone who suspects low testosterone should be assessed by a doctor, who can look for other causes of the same symptoms, such as poor sleep, depression, obesity, medicines or thyroid disease, before deciding whether any treatment is needed.

The trial behind the claim: Pandit et al. 2016

The trial that launched a thousand product pages was published in the journal Andrologia in 2016 by Pandit and colleagues at the J. B. Roy State Ayurvedic Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, part of the government of West Bengal. According to the abstract, healthy volunteers aged between 45 and 55 years took part in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. They took 250 mg of purified shilajit twice a day, or placebo, for 90 consecutive days. The abstract reports that shilajit "significantly (P below 0.05) increased total testosterone, free testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS) compared with placebo", and that the gonadotropic hormones LH and FSH were "well maintained".

Summaries of the paper report that 96 men took part and that, from baseline, total testosterone rose by about 20.45%, free testosterone by 19.14% and DHEAS by 31.35%. We rely on those secondary figures for the exact percentages, because the abstract itself gives only the direction and significance, and we could not access the full text in a readable form. We say so because earlier versions of this page gave absolute values in ng/dL and described the trial as manufacturer-funded and as showing a fall in testosterone on placebo. We could not verify any of that against the abstract, so we have removed it. The affiliation listed on the paper is a state Ayurvedic college.

What can be said with confidence is modest. In one randomised trial, in one group of men, one purified preparation over 90 days was associated with statistically significant rises in three hormones compared with placebo, and it did not disturb LH and FSH. Whether the rise had any effect on how the men felt, how strong they were, their mood, or their sexual function is not in the abstract. That absence is the most important thing to know. Testosterone is a means to an end, not the end itself. Men do not take a supplement to raise a number in a laboratory report.

Two further cautions apply. The dose was 500 mg a day of a purified preparation, ten times the roughly 50 mg in a Shilajit Choco Bite, so the result says nothing directly about our product. And the study has not, to our knowledge, been repeated by an independent team, which matters because single trials in this area are often not confirmed when others try.

What a systematic review made of shilajit and other "boosters"

The best way to place a single trial is to compare it with its neighbours. In 2023 Morgado and colleagues published a systematic review in the International Journal of Impotence Research asking a blunt question: do "testosterone boosters" really increase serum total testosterone? They searched two decades of publications and included 52 studies covering 27 proposed boosters, sorted by four populations: male athletes, men with late-onset hypogonadism, infertile men and healthy men. Their overall conclusion was that most fail to increase total testosterone. Table 1 lists the ingredients named in the abstract and the reviewers' verdicts.

The table shows why the reviewers' phrase, "possibly effective", should be read carefully. The abstract does not say which study the shilajit rating rests on, and it lists the purified extract as a single report. The only randomised testosterone trial of a purified shilajit extract that we found is the Pandit trial, so it is likely, but not certain, that this is the evidence behind the rating. The same phrase is used for other ingredients that rest on very few studies. And several familiar ingredients, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, tribulus and creatine, mostly did not raise total testosterone in the studies reviewed. Two facts from this review are worth holding on to. Testosterone boosters as a group do poorly. And shilajit is listed among the exceptions on the strength of one study, which is a reason for interest and for caution, not a conclusion.

Sperm count and fertility: one open-label study

The second human study behind the male claims is Biswas and colleagues' 2010 report in Andrologia, and it is a different kind of study from Pandit's. It assessed 60 infertile men and enrolled the 35 whose total sperm count was below 20 million per millilitre of semen, the threshold the authors used to define oligospermia. Each took a 100 mg capsule of processed shilajit twice a day after major meals for 90 days, and 28 completed the treatment. There was no placebo group and no control group.

The results reported in the abstract, comparing the end of treatment with the start, were statistically significant improvements in spermia (+37.6%), total sperm count (+61.4%), sperm motility (12.4% to 17.4% at different time intervals) and normal sperm count (+18.9%), together with a decrease in pus and epithelial cells. Semen MDA, a marker of oxidative stress, fell by 18.7%. Serum testosterone rose by 23.5% and FSH by 9.4%. Hepatic and renal profiles were unaltered, which the authors took to mean the processed shilajit was safe at that dose, and a chromatographic analysis showed that constituents of the preparation appeared in the semen. Figure 2 shows the magnitudes.

The study deserves attention, and it deserves caution for four reasons. The first is the lack of a control group, which we cannot stress enough. Semen quality varies widely from one sample to the next in the same man, and men chosen because their counts were low will, on average, have higher counts on retest, a statistical effect called regression to the mean. Men who enrol in a fertility study often also change their habits. Without a placebo group, none of those explanations can be separated from an effect of the capsule. The second reason is that the abstract gives percentage changes, not absolute values, so we do not know how many men moved from below to above the reference range. The WHO's sixth edition manual on semen examination, published in 2021, gives a lower reference limit for sperm concentration of 16 million per millilitre, lower than the 20 million used in this study, and a 61% rise from a very low base can still leave a count low. The third is size: 28 men completed. The fourth is that the study measured sperm, not pregnancy. Live births are what couples want.

A 2024 study in mice, reported in the Journal of Ayurveda and Integrative Medicine, found that shilajit at 100 and 200 mg per kilogram body weight restored testicular germ cell dynamics in mice given the chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide. It is an interesting mechanistic finding and it is a mouse study. It adds nothing to what a man with a low sperm count should do, which is to see a fertility specialist, not to buy a supplement and wait.

Erections and libido: no human trials

Shilajit has a traditional reputation as an aphrodisiac, and product pages often say it improves libido or erectile function. We searched PubMed for shilajit together with terms for libido, erectile function and sexual function and found no human trial. What exists is a rat study by Kaur and colleagues, published in the American Journal of Men's Health in 2012, which tested the traditional aphrodisiac role. It found that shilajit had a parasympathomimetic effect, meaning it acted like the nervous system messenger acetylcholine. In isolated strips of rat corpus cavernosum, the tissue that fills with blood in an erection, it relaxed the tissue in a concentration-dependent way at 400 and 800 micrograms per millilitre. In live rats, it also lowered mean arterial blood pressure and heart rate, and both effects were blocked by atropine.

That is a laboratory result about rat tissue. It is a plausible mechanism, and it is also a hint that an active substance which lowers blood pressure and heart rate in rats deserves care in people who take blood pressure medicines or have heart conditions. It is not evidence that shilajit improves erections in men. Erectile problems can be an early sign of heart disease, diabetes or other conditions, and a man who has them should see a doctor, not just try a supplement.

What the research says about women

Shilajit was marketed to men for decades, and more recently to women, often with the same language. The research shows how little has been done. Searching PubMed for shilajit together with terms for women, polycystic ovary syndrome, menopause, menstrual symptoms and libido, we found two human trials that enrolled women only. Both are described in Table 2 with the outcome they measured.

Bone density after menopause

The stronger of the two is the trial by Pingali and Nutalapati, published in Phytomedicine in 2022. Sixty postmenopausal women aged 45 to 65 with osteopenia, meaning bone density lower than normal but not low enough to be called osteoporosis, were randomised to placebo, 250 mg or 500 mg of a standardised aqueous shilajit extract daily for 48 weeks. Bone mineral density of the lumbar spine and femoral neck was measured at the start, at 24 weeks and at 48 weeks, alongside blood markers of bone turnover (CTX-1, BALP, RANKL, OPG), oxidative stress (MDA, GSH) and inflammation (hsCRP).

The abstract reports that bone density progressively decreased in women receiving placebo but that this was dose-dependently attenuated with shilajit, producing significantly better percentage changes from baseline at 24 and 48 weeks in both supplemented groups (P below 0.001). Markers of bone breakdown fell and OPG, which protects bone, rose in both shilajit groups but not in the placebo group. Malondialdehyde fell and glutathione rose from week 12, and hsCRP declined progressively. The authors concluded that this shilajit extract supports bone density in part by attenuating the increased bone turnover, inflammation and oxidative stress that accompany estrogen deficiency.

It is the most convincing single result in the shilajit literature: blinded, placebo-controlled, three arms, dose-dependent, and longer than any other trial. It is also small (60 women), used a specific standardised extract and not a general product, and measured bone density on a scan and not fractures, which are what matter to a woman's health. The abstract does not report the absolute size of the density change or any adverse effects. We would call it a promising finding that deserves a larger, independent trial. It is not a reason to treat osteopenia with a supplement in place of medical advice. Established measures for protecting bone, and medicines when a doctor judges them necessary, have far larger bodies of evidence, and a woman with osteopenia should discuss her options with her doctor.

Skin blood flow in healthy women

The second study, by Das and colleagues in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition in 2019, gave healthy adult women 125 mg or 250 mg of shilajit twice a day for 14 weeks. Skin biopsies from the inner upper arm were taken before and after, and skin blood flow was measured from images. At the higher dose, skin microperfusion improved compared with baseline and with placebo, and genes involved in endothelial cell migration, the growth of blood vessels and the extracellular matrix were switched on. No adverse effect was reported. It is described by its authors as the first evidence of this kind, and it is a study of gene expression and blood flow. It did not measure how the skin looked or felt, wrinkles, elasticity or hydration, so claims that shilajit "rejuvenates" skin go beyond it.

What is missing

We found no human trial of shilajit for menstrual symptoms, polycystic ovary syndrome, menopausal hot flushes or mood, female fertility, pregnancy or breastfeeding, or libido in women. The claims that appear on many "shilajit for women" pages about hormone balance, cycle regulation or fertility have no human trial behind them that we could find. Pages that say otherwise are extrapolating from the men's testosterone research or from its general mineral content.

The testosterone research raises a question rather than answering it. Cleveland Clinic states that shilajit may elevate testosterone and that in women this could cause acne, irregular periods and hair loss. That is an expectation based on the men's trial, and we found no study that measured hormones in women taking shilajit. Still, it is a reason for any woman whose condition already involves elevated androgens, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, to ask a doctor before trying it. It is also a reason to be sceptical of women's products that promise to "balance hormones" with a substance whose main hormonal finding is a rise in a male hormone in men.

One of our earlier pages also described the muscle and fatigue study by Keller and colleagues as a mixed-sex study. It was not. The abstract describes 63 recreationally active men. We have corrected that, which leaves the women's evidence as the two studies above.

An evidence map: what has and has not been studied

What a 20% rise would mean in practice

Percentages sound impressive until you ask what they are a percentage of. The size of a 20% rise depends entirely on where you start, and the Baltimore study gives us a yardstick: total testosterone fell by an average of about 0.124 nanomoles per litre (nmol/L) per year in that cohort. Laboratories in the United States often report in nanograms per decilitre (ng/dL), and the two units convert at roughly 0.0347 nmol/L per ng/dL, so the American Urological Association's cut-off of 300 ng/dL is about 10.4 nmol/L. Table 3 shows what a 20% increase would look like from three illustrative starting points, and how many years of average age-related decline it corresponds to.

Read the table with care. It does not say that shilajit turns back the clock by 16 to 32 years, because a hormone level is not biological age and because the average decline is measured across a population over decades. It does show that a 20% change, if it is real, is a noticeable change in the number on the report. What it cannot show is whether such a change is enough to change how a man feels, and the trial abstract does not tell us. Testosterone treatment trials generally look at symptoms and function as well as levels for exactly that reason, and doctors decide on treatment by combining a low level with symptoms, as the AUA guideline says.

How to read a testosterone result

If you do have your testosterone measured, a few facts help you make sense of the report. Total testosterone is the whole amount in the blood, most of it bound to proteins. Free testosterone is the small fraction not bound, and the Baltimore study used a "free T index", total testosterone divided by sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), as an estimate of it. DHEAS is a different hormone, a weak androgen made mainly by the adrenal glands, which the Pandit trial also measured. LH and FSH are pituitary hormones that signal the testes to make testosterone and sperm, and the trial's finding that they were "well maintained" means the shilajit group's rise in testosterone did not come with a shift in those signals.

The timing and the lab matter. The AUA guideline specifies early-morning samples, on two separate occasions, preferably in the same laboratory with the same method. Levels vary through the day and from one day to the next, and different labs use different methods, so a single number from an unusual time can mislead. Anyone using home tests or comparing results between clinics should keep this in mind. A rise or fall of a few percent between two tests is often noise.

Who was actually studied

A last point about the evidence concerns who took part. The testosterone trial enrolled healthy men aged 45 to 55, which is a middle-aged group, not the older men in whom low testosterone is most common, and we found no trial of shilajit in men with diagnosed low testosterone or in men over 55. The fertility study enrolled infertile men with low sperm counts. The muscle studies enrolled young men in their twenties. Nobody has tested shilajit in men who have symptoms and a confirmed low testosterone, which is the group that a product sold "for low T" implies. The results, in other words, cannot be applied straightforwardly to the man reading the product page. This is not unusual in supplement research, but it is a reason not to treat a 90-day trial in healthy volunteers as proof that a supplement will help a person with a problem.

What this means if you are a man over 40

If you are a man in your 40s or 50s wondering whether shilajit will "fix" low energy, the evidence points to a different order of priorities. Tiredness, low mood and reduced sex drive are common and have many causes: poor sleep, depression, sleep apnoea, excess weight, alcohol, medicines and thyroid problems among them. Testosterone deficiency is one possibility and is only diagnosed with two early-morning blood tests and symptoms. If low testosterone is confirmed, there are established treatments, and your doctor will discuss them and the reasons to be careful with them. Taking a supplement before you know whether you have a problem risks masking the real cause or delaying a diagnosis.

If you are healthy, have had your levels checked and want to try shilajit anyway, the trial dose was 500 mg a day of a purified preparation for 90 days, and the product needs to be one that has been tested for heavy metals, as we explain in the safety guide. Do not exceed the studied range, do not stack it with other "boosters" in the hope of adding effects, and consider a blood test at the start and end, so that you can tell whether anything changed.

Where our Shilajit Choco Bites fit

Our Shilajit Choco Bites contain approximately 0.05 g (50 mg) of shilajit each and the product page recommends them for adults aged 40 and over. As we have said, that is one tenth of the trial dose, so the bites do not replicate the testosterone or bone density trials, and we make no claim that they raise testosterone, improve fertility, protect bone or benefit hormones in men or women. The 40-plus recommendation reflects the general age-related decline of testosterone shown in Figure 1. The trial enrolled men aged 45 to 55, and no trial has tested any age cut-off. We have also not published a batch-matched heavy metal report for the shilajit, and our buying guide explains why that matters.

What a better trial would look like

The gaps above suggest what the next study should do. It should be independent of the maker of the preparation, and registered in advance with a stated main outcome so that results cannot be selected afterwards. It should enrol men who are actually the target market, for example middle-aged and older men with symptoms and a confirmed low testosterone on two early-morning tests, and it should follow them for at least six months. It should measure how they feel and function, including energy, mood, sexual function, muscle strength and body composition, as well as hormone levels, and it should record adverse events in a structured way and test blood for heavy metals so that safety is not taken on trust. For women, it should ask what women actually want to know: whether shilajit changes bone density and fractures over years, whether it does anything for menopause symptoms, and whether it changes androgen levels in either direction. And the preparation should be characterised, with its fulvic acid content and heavy metal results published, so that anyone buying a product can tell whether it resembles the one that was tested.

That kind of study is feasible. It is simply expensive and, for a natural product that cannot be patented, nobody has a strong financial reason to pay for it. That is why the evidence has stayed at this level for years, and why it is worth reading each sales claim as a hypothesis.

Questions to take to your doctor

If you are considering shilajit for a hormonal or bone reason, these questions turn the research above into a useful conversation. Men can ask whether their symptoms warrant a testosterone test, and if so, whether it will be done in the early morning and repeated. They can ask what else could explain the symptoms, such as sleep, weight, mood, medicines or thyroid, and whether any of their current medicines affect testosterone. Women with osteopenia can ask what their bone density scan shows, what established measures are worth using and whether any supplement would interact with their medicines. Everyone can ask whether a supplement is safe with their conditions and drugs, and what to monitor if they take one. If you decide to try shilajit, tell the doctor which product and dose, so that any change in your results can be read in that light.

Shilajit and ashwagandha on testosterone

Because the two are often sold together, it is worth noting how ashwagandha appears in the same review. The 2023 systematic review found three studies of Withania somnifera and rated it possibly effective for healthy men, which is similar in strength to the rating for the purified shilajit extract, based on more studies. Neither is close to established, and neither rating is about symptoms. Ashwagandha's stronger evidence, as we describe in the complete guide, is for stress and anxiety, and it has its own safety concern in the form of rare liver injury. A combination product is not evidence of a combined effect, since we found no trial of the two together.

What we corrected from our earlier pages

This article replaces three earlier pages: a testosterone trials article, a shilajit-for-women article and a short FAQ on testosterone research. Checking them against the sources produced these changes. We removed the ng/dL values quoted for the Pandit trial, because 398.8 to 474.91 works out to a 19.1% rise, not the 20.45% quoted beside it, and we could not verify either figure from the abstract. We removed the statements that the trial was funded by the manufacturer and that testosterone fell in the placebo group, which we could not verify. We corrected the FSH change in the oligospermia study from 9.8% to 9.4% and the description of "normal sperm count", which is how the abstract phrases it. We removed the description of the Keller strength study as mixed-sex, as it enrolled men only. We removed the statement that hormonal side effects in women are associated with adulterated products, because the source we found attributes them to a possible rise in testosterone. And we replaced the sentence saying our product labelling reflects a studied 40-year threshold, because no trial tested one.

Frequently asked questions

Does shilajit increase testosterone?

One randomised, placebo-controlled trial of 96 healthy men aged 45 to 55 found significant rises in total testosterone, free testosterone and DHEAS after 90 days of 250 mg twice a day of purified shilajit. It has not been independently replicated, and the abstract reports hormone levels but not symptoms.

How much shilajit was used in the testosterone study?

250 mg twice a day, 500 mg in total, of a purified preparation, for 90 days.

Can shilajit improve sperm count?

One open-label study of 28 men with low sperm counts reported a 61.4% rise in total sperm count after 90 days of 100 mg twice a day. It had no control group and did not measure pregnancy. Men with fertility concerns should see a specialist.

Is shilajit good for women?

The best evidence is a 48-week trial in 60 postmenopausal women with osteopenia in which shilajit extract dose-dependently reduced bone density loss compared with placebo. There is no human research on menstrual symptoms, PCOS, fertility or libido in women.

Should I take shilajit if I am over 40?

Age alone is not a reason. Testosterone tends to fall with age, but most men in their 60s and 70s still have normal levels, and low testosterone is diagnosed with two early-morning blood tests plus symptoms. Speak to a doctor first.

This article is for general information and is not medical advice. It has not been evaluated by the FDA, Health Canada, the MHRA or any other regulator, and shilajit or any product containing it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, including low testosterone, infertility or osteoporosis. If you are pregnant, breastfeeding, managing a health condition or taking medication, speak to a qualified healthcare provider before using it.

Sources

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2. Biswas TK, Pandit S, Mondal S, et al. Clinical evaluation of spermatogenic activity of processed Shilajit in oligospermia. Andrologia 2010;42(1):48-56. PMID 20078516.
3. Morgado A, Tsampoukas G, Sokolakis I, Schoentgen N, Urkmez A, Sarikaya S. Do "testosterone boosters" really increase serum total testosterone? A systematic review. Int J Impot Res 2024;36(4):348-64. PMID 37697053.
4. Harman SM, Metter EJ, Tobin JD, Pearson J, Blackman MR. Longitudinal effects of aging on serum total and free testosterone levels in healthy men. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2001;86(2):724-31. PMID 11158037.
5. Mulhall JP, Trost LW, Brannigan RE, et al. Evaluation and management of testosterone deficiency: AUA guideline. J Urol 2018;200(2):423-32.
6. World Health Organization. WHO laboratory manual for the examination and processing of human semen, 6th edition, 2021 (lower reference limits).
7. Pingali U, Nutalapati C. Shilajit extract reduces oxidative stress, inflammation, and bone loss to dose-dependently preserve bone mineral density in postmenopausal women with osteopenia. Phytomedicine 2022;105:154334. PMID 35933897.
8. Das A, El Masry MS, Gnyawali SC, et al. Skin transcriptome of middle-aged women supplemented with natural herbo-mineral Shilajit shows induction of microvascular and extracellular matrix mechanisms. J Am Coll Nutr 2019;38(6):526-36. PMID 31161927.
9. Keller JL, Housh TJ, Hill EC, et al. The effects of Shilajit supplementation on fatigue-induced decreases in muscular strength and serum hydroxyproline levels. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 2019;16:3. PMID 30728074.
10. Kaur S, Kumar P, Kumar D, Kharya MD, Singh N. Parasympathomimetic effect of shilajit accounts for relaxation of rat corpus cavernosum. Am J Mens Health 2012;7(2):119-27. PMID 23060465.
11. Rajpoot A, Yadav K, Yadav A, Mishra RK. Shilajit mitigates chemotherapeutic drug-induced testicular toxicity. J Ayurveda Integr Med 2024;15(4):100930. PMID 39121783.
12. Cleveland Clinic. Shilajit: benefits, side effects and uses.