Natural Male Health
Maca Articles

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August 15, 2001
Reuters, august 15, 2001.

Peru’s ‘miracle‘ maca can boost your sex drive by 200 % according to a study presented on Wednesday. The powerful plant cultivated for more than two millenniums, in the harsh high Andes at altitudes of more than 13,000 feet, is the basis of a nutritional supplement often dubbed Peruvian ginseng.

Scientist Gustavo Gonzales of Peru’s Cayetano Heredia University, told a news conference the nine month trial involving men between 20 and 40 years old, pointed an 200% lift in libido and up to a doubling of sperm production. The research also proved that maca has an important effect as an energizer, acting over the energy reserves of body fat.

According to reports from the international medical community, the maca plant, definitely has energy-giving properties, boosts physical and sexual performance.

Nature & Health Magazine,
December 1999/ January 2000)

Rather than hormone replacement therapy (HRT), millions of women are putting their faith in a remedy which has been used for 10,000 years, which is safe and amazingly effective: a cruciferous root vegetable from Peru called maca.

The scientist responsible for much of the current knowledge of the maca root is Dr .Gloria Chacon de Popivici, a biologist trained at the University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru. Dr. Chacon says that maca root works in a fundamentally different way than HRT, promoting optimal functioning of the hypothalamus and the pituitary, thereby improving the functioning of all the endocrine glands .responsible of producing your own hormones . It is important to remember that maca does not itself contain any hormones, but its action on the body jogs the pituitary into producing the precursor hormones which ultimately end up raising estrogen, progesterone and testosterone levels, as well as helping to balance the adrenal glands, the thyroid and the pancreas. But this occurs naturally, not with time-bomb drugs which throw the entire body into a dangerous state of confusion.

And men, too, find that maca can counteract the difficulties they may experience in maintaining good sexual relationships as they age, due to a general slowing down in the output of the endocrine glands."

Gloria Chacon de Popivici, PhD.

This biologist/author has done the most important scientific work to date on the maca plant. In particular, Dr. Chacon isolated four alkaloids from the maca root and carried out animal studies with male and female rats given either powdered maca root or alkaloids isolated from the roots. In comparison with the animal control groups, those receiving either root powder or alkaloids showed multiple egg follicle maturation in females and, in males, significantly higher sperm production and motility rates than control groups.

Dr. Chacon established that it was the alkaloids in the maca root, not its plant hormones, that produced fertility effects on the ovaries and testes of the rats. These effects are measurable within 72 hours of dosing the animals. Through the experiments, she deduced that the alkaloids were acting on the hypothalamus-pituitary gland, which explains why both male and female rats were afflicted in a gender-appropriate manner. This also explains why the effects in humans are not limited to ovaries and testes, but also act on the adrenals, giving a feeling of greater energy and vitality, and on the pancreas and thyroid as well.

Implications of Dr. Chacon’s discovery of the pituitary stimulating effects of maca are enormous. What it appears to mean is that hormone replacement therapy, even the natural varieties, will no longer be the gold standard.

A recent study was published in the April 2000 issue of Urology, the prestigious medical journal that first published the Viagra™ studies. This study scientifically demonstrated that the standardized Maca, the extract in MacaActive supplements, improves libido, sexual function and energy. In fact, the energy and sexual activity of the test subjects nearly DOUBLED after taking the herb for 21 days!