A new clinical trial found that daily supplementation with a fenugreek extract was linked to significant improvements in sexual dysfunction, among a population of young, healthy women.
 
The study, appearing in the journal Clinical Phytoscience, was a placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind study, in which 48 healthy women between the ages of 20 and 48 were randomized either to receive a placebo or a 250 mg dose twice daily of FenuSMART, a fenugreek extract manufactured by Akay, by regulating hormonal activity.
 
Previous studies have shown that supplementing with the fenugreek extract at the same dosage in postmenopausal women was linked to significant improvements in hormonal balance, and the authors theorized that fenugreek extract would be safe and potentially efficacious on young, healthy women in the domains of sexual problems and irritability.
 
The authors of the study examined participants’ sexual problems and irritability using a questionnaire at baseline and at the end of the study period, which lasted 42 days. They found significant improvements in the severity of complaints in the experimental group, compared to placebo, with 41.6% of participants reporting significant improvements to sexual problems, which included issues such as low libido, vaginal dryness, irritability, and mood.
 
Furthermore, blood sample analysis revealed that there was a significant increase in the levels of hormones including estradiol, total testosterones, and free testosterone compared to placebo at the end of the study period.
 
“A decline in androgen levels normally starts long before menopause; specifically from the perimenopausal age of around 47.5 years,” the authors of the study said. “Estradiol and testosterone are the major hormones that have been implicated for modulating women’s sexual desire and functions.”
 
42 days of supplementation with fenugreek extract, the authors concluded, was able to restore concentrations of these hormones to a level that was able to exert a beneficial effect in self-reported sexual dysfunction symptoms, with no side effects observed and no other significant changes in the hematological or biochemical parameters they assessed.
 
“The enhancement observed for estradiol and testosterone concentrations were within the safe reference range. The molecular mechanism of estrogenic effect can be attributed to the protodioscin content in [FenuSMART], since protodiscin can be converted to DHEA and further to testosterone and estradiol by the action of aromatase,” the authors of the study concluded.