Natural substances and herbs to combat impotence
The idea that ginseng is good for you is not a new one as it has been used in Chinese medicine for many thousands of years. It was originally viewed as a substance that would improve the mind and the ability to think, something that served as a whole body tonic for anyone who took ginseng.
In modern scientific parlance, ginseng is an adaptogen, meaning that it is a substance that helps the human body to restore and repair itself without any unpleasant side-effects even if the recommended dosage is exceeded.
In terms of helping to prevent impotence, the most important characteristics of ginseng are that it helps to reduce bodily stress and fatigue, and most importantly, it is one of the most effective substances known for slowing down the ageing process.
As we have already seen on several occasions, the incidence of impotence is likely to increase as men grow older, and therefore anything that can slow down the ageing process is likely to reduce the severity of impotence or to delay its initial onset. This, combined with providing greater stamina, is the primary benefit of taking ginseng for an impotence sufferer (although because there are many other beneficial effects, ginseng really does act as a whole body tonic).
Horny goat weed is undoubtedly one of the best known herbal remedies for impotence as reported by Wikipedia: ‘horny goat weed, which has shown promising signs of becoming a genuine alternative to Viagra for impotent men’.
While this herb has been used to treat a variety of ailments including liver, kidney and back disorders, it is best known as an aphrodisiac and more recent research has also indicated that it has a genuine ability to improve both sexual desire and performance.
This research demonstrated that this happens because horny goat weed (‘Yin Yang Huo’ in Chinese roughly translates to ‘licentious goat plant’
-hence its Western name) inhibits the growth of a natural enzyme called acetylcholinesterase (AChE).
Without getting too complex or scientific, one of the main purposes of AChE is to degrade the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, the primary purpose of which is to pass instructions and other information around the body as quickly as possible.
Because AChE destroys the neurotransmitter, it makes it difficult for information to move around the body quickly enough so in the situation where message of sexual arousal should be speeding around the body, AChE is slowing down and blocking these messages, hence, there is an impotence problem.
Horny goat weed inhibits the growth of AChE and thus, the appropriate arousal (and erectile) messages are conveyed to the appropriate parts of the body far more effectively. Consequently, horny goat weed enables the ‘messages to get through’ - hence the comparison to Viagra.
There are plenty of places where you can buy horny goat weed online, with a couple of examples being Worldwide-Supplements (St John’s wort is also available from the same site) or GlobalSupplements.com.
L-Arginine is another completely natural substance that its proponents claim is the new Viagra, and once again, it is a sufficiently powerful impotence treatment to merit the claim to a certain extent.
L-Arginine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in the body, and while it serves various functions, the most important of these as far as an impotence sufferer is concerned is its ability to make nitric oxide.
Consequently, while L-Arginine is often considered to be most important for heart disease treatment, it has also been used as an extremely effective and successful treatment for erectile dysfunction for some time.
Not only does L-Arginine make nitric oxide, it also enhances the actions of it. Hence, this particular amino acid has the ability to enhance blood flow to the penis by relaxing the muscles surrounding the appropriate blood vessels.
However, while Viagra works by blocking the PDE5 enzyme, L-Arginine works in almost the opposite way by making new nitric oxide.
More than this, not only does L-Arginine help to make sure that enough blood get to the extremities of the body to ensure that a successful erection can take place, it also helps to lower blood pressure, control plaque and lower cholesterol levels as well.
Also, unlike Viagra (but in a similar way to most other natural impotence treatments), L-Arginine has to be taken every day, and the effects are cumulative rather than immediate. In other words, whereas Viagra works within an hour or so, L-Arginine will take several days of regular dosage to start becoming effective.
Under normal circumstances, your kidneys and liver produce enough L- Arginine entirely naturally to keep you fit and healthy. However, there can be situations where additional L-Arginine is required such as when the body has suffered severe injuries, burns or infections, and depending on the degree of impotence being suffered, it may even be that this condition falls into the same category.
In this case, your focus should be on consuming foods that are rich in both animal and plant based proteins, such as meat, dairy produce, fish, poultry and nuts.
Perhaps surprisingly for an amino acid that is produced entirely naturally by the body, there can sometimes be side effects from L- Arginine, especially if the levels of the acid are higher than normal.
For example, in excessively large doses, it can result in blood pressure that falls too low, as well as having the potential to cause nausea, headaches and indigestion.
Too much L-Arginine can increase stomach acid, and especially in people with liver disease, it can alter potassium levels as well.
Also, supplemental L-Arginine is definitely not something that you should be taking if you have serious heart problems, as made clear here.
Having said all of that, unless you fall into a high risk group (i.e. someone who has already suffered an MI) and choose to ignore sensible advice, L-Arginine is a natural and safe way of treating your impotence, one that can be bought online for very low prices, without prescription, from sites like TheCatalog.com.
According to Wikipedia, the name Catuaba refers to the infusion of the bark of several native Brazilian trees, amongst the most common of which are Trichilia catigua and Erythroxylum vacciniifolium, although other tree barks are also included under this generic name.
More than the specifics of the name, however, the most important fact is that Catuaba is a traditional Brazilian medicine that has been used for many generations as a natural aphrodisiac and central nervous system stimulant.
Although there is some doubt whether these claims have ever been validated clinically, there are many men who have found that taking Catuaba extract has increased their natural libido and sex drive by a considerable margin. Thus, there does seem to be sufficient evidence in support of the claims made on behalf of Catuaba as an impotence treatment to merit further investigation.
From an evergreen tree that originally hails from West Africa, Yohimbe bark contains alkaloids, the primary one is of which is yohimbine. It is this that is used to make the herbal treatment known as yohimbe.
This is a prescription drug in the USA, one that used to be extremely popular as an impotence treatment. However, since the advent of Viagra, the popularity of yohimbe has waned somewhat.
There is plenty of evidence that this particular treatment can be very effective for dealing with impotence, as the prescription version of yohimbe has been extensively tested and shown to have positive effects. However, the evidence that yohimbe as a dietary supplement can have such positive effects is less well documented.
What is well known is that it is critically important that the dosage you take is absolutely right.
If you take too little, it will have very little effect, but if you take too much, it can become toxic. For example, in the USA, the FDA reports that some people have complained of kidney failure or seizures, and such side-effects as raised heart beat, nausea and increased blood pressure have been reported even from normal dosages of yohimbe.
For this reason, although it is possible to buy yohimbe as a stand-alone supplement to treat impotence, it is generally better to buy compound supplements where yohimbe is only one ingredient of many. Because such compound formulas tend to keep the yohimbe content on the safer side of the line, you can ensure that your intake of yohimbe is never likely to reach toxic levels.
However, if you suffer from any kind of kidney or liver disease, stomach ulcers or irregular or unusual blood pressure (i.e. if your blood pressure is too high or low), you should avoid taking yohimbe.
Lepidium meyenii or maca (as it is more commonly known) is a plant from the high Andes of Bolivia and Peru, considered to be a superfood in South America - because when eaten cooked (as it most commonly is) or raw, it is claimed that maca imparts great strength, stamina and virility. Not only this, but the root of the plant (the part eaten or used in supplements) also contains a substance believed to exert many beneficial effects on the central nervous system.
Consequently, maca is generally believed to be an aphrodisiac, and an effective treatment for impotence. It is also an adaptogen in the same way as ginseng is, so it is an excellent full body tonic. Moreover, given that the nutritional value of eating maca is also very high – similar to brown rice – eating maca should be your number one choice (as opposed to taking it in supplementary pill form).
Muira puama is another South American herb that is believed to be an aphrodisiac, one used to treat sexual problems and impotence for many hundreds of years. From the available evidence, it seems that muira puama does have strong stimulant qualities, and it is therefore often used in compound herbal impotence treatments.
Schizandra (or Schisandra) berry
The berries of the Schisandra shrub have long been used in traditional Chinese medicine as a sedative and tonic agent, something that can both relax and energise the body at the same time.
In modern scientific parlance, schizandra would be known as an adaptogenic herb (an adaptogen) - that is one that can help to return the body to its normal balanced state irrespective of its previous condition. In the same way that ginseng was traditionally considered to be a full body tonic, schizandra serves exactly the same purpose.
Hence, for an impotence sufferer, the attraction of taking schizandra berry is that it relieves stress, removes anxiety and increases stamina, all at the same time. For anyone suffering from psychologically induced impotence, adaptogens like these berries, maca and ginseng could all therefore provide a very significant boost.
Tribulus terrestris is another traditional medicine that has been used both in China and in India for many centuries. While in the mid-1990s, tribulus became well known in the West after East European Olympic athletes answered drug allegations by claiming that all they were taking was tribulus, it has traditionally been viewed as a herb that can help counter low libido, erectile dysfunction and infertility.
It has been claimed that tribulus can help to increase the levels of sex related hormones in the body such as testosterone and oestrogen, and it is certainly true that preliminary studies on animals indicated that tribulus heightens sexual activity. This was believed to result from an increase in testosterone levels, but no large-scale human study has been carried out so far.
On the other hand, apart from people who suffer from hormone dependent medical problems such as breast or prostate cancer, it does not appear that there are any significant adverse side-effects associated with tribulus either. It is therefore a herbal remedy that anyone who does not have a medical condition but who does suffer impotence can try without being too concerned about side-effects.
Velvet beans (Mucuna pruriens) is an annual climbing shrub found in the Caribbean, India and Africa.
Extracts from mucuna pruriens are rich in L-dopa, which is turned into dopamine in the human body. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemical in the brain that is very influential as far as mood and sexuality are concerned. For this reason, mucuna pruriens has long been used by the people of the countries to which it is indigenous as an aphrodisiac.
From what is known about dopamine, there seems little doubt that increased levels will increase libido and sexual activity, which is why it is often recommended as a supplement for impotence sufferers.
Tongkat ali is a tree that is native to many countries in southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. It is generally the root of the tree that is used for medicinal purposes.
Tongkat Ali has been used for many centuries in Southeast Asia as an aid to sexual performance, so much so that it has been dubbed the ‘Asian Viagra’. It is believed that the extract of the tree roots increases libido, sexual desire, sexual performance and also as a treatment for erectile dysfunction.
All of this is believed to derive from the fact that Tongkat Ali is another natural substance that is believed to increase or at least enhance testosterone, and as this is the main hormone behind the male sex drive, this makes perfect sense.
There are very few adverse side-effects associated with Tongkat Ali, although excessive ingestion could lead to insomnia or anxiety attacks. However, the fact that, throughout Southeast Asia, anyone can buy canned drinks containing Tongkat Ali across the counter of a normal convenience store, indicates that there are very few serious risks associated with this particular natural extract.