Tongkat ali and testosterone: what the research actually shows

Tongkat ali is the botanical most often named when someone claims a supplement raises testosterone. This is what the human research actually reports, what it does not, and how to read a label that features it.

What tongkat ali is

Tongkat ali is the root of Eurycoma longifolia, a Southeast Asian shrub used traditionally in Malaysia and Indonesia as a tonic. Modern products usually sell a water-soluble root extract standardised to a marker compound such as eurycomanone. The plant is unrelated to maca or ashwagandha and belongs to a different research tradition — smaller, more recent, and much more focused on hormones.

The late-onset hypogonadism study

The study cited most often gave a standardised water-soluble tongkat ali extract to men with late-onset hypogonadism for one month and reported that the proportion whose testosterone reached the normal reference range rose substantially, alongside improvement in symptom scores (Tambi et al., Andrologia, 2012). That is a genuinely interesting result and it comes with a genuine caveat: it was not a placebo-controlled trial, so regression to the mean, seasonal variation and expectation all remain live explanations. Testosterone is a noisy measurement that varies through the day and between draws, which is precisely why diagnostic guidelines require two separate early-morning samples (Bhasin et al., J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 2018).

The stress and mood trial

A four-week randomised, placebo-controlled trial in moderately stressed adults reported improvements in tension, anger and confusion scores and a reduction in the stress hormone cortisol in the tongkat ali group (Talbott et al., J Int Soc Sports Nutr, 2013). It is a small, short study, and its headline finding is about stress rather than about erections. That pattern — stress markers moving more convincingly than sexual outcomes — repeats across this whole ingredient class, and it is the same pattern seen in the maca and ashwagandha trials.

What the systematic reviews say about the category

When reviewers went looking for products sold as testosterone boosters and asked whether they raise serum total testosterone, the answer for the great majority of ingredients was no supporting human evidence at all (Morgado et al., Int J Impot Res, 2024). An analysis of the fifty best-selling online testosterone boosters found only a minority of listed ingredients had human data behind the claim, and that several products supplied vitamins and minerals above recommended upper limits (Balasubramanian et al., J Sex Med, 2019). Tongkat ali sits at the more evidenced end of a poorly evidenced field. That is a real distinction, and it is a smaller compliment than the marketing suggests.

Is tongkat ali in MaxForce?

No. The MaxForce ingredient list names muira puama extract, maca extract, catuaba extract, ashwagandha and L-arginine. Tongkat ali is not among them. We are covering it here because it is the ingredient men most often search for when comparing men’s vitality products, and because knowing what is not in a formula is part of reading it honestly.

Where the quality problem sits

Tongkat ali extracts vary enormously in strength and standardisation, and the men’s category has a documented adulteration history: an analysis of supplements named in FDA public notifications found sexual enhancement products among the largest groups containing undeclared pharmaceutical ingredients, most often sildenafil or an analogue (Tucker et al., JAMA Netw Open, 2018). A review of herbal sexual enhancers also catalogues psychiatric and neurological adverse effects reported with plants in this class (Brunetti et al., Pharmaceuticals (Basel), 2020). If a tongkat ali product produces a fast, unmistakable, drug-like effect, that is a reason for suspicion rather than for satisfaction.

How to read a tongkat ali label

Why “boosting” is the wrong frame

The word boost implies a dial that goes up when you push it. Testosterone does not behave like that. It is regulated by a feedback loop running between the hypothalamus, the pituitary and the testes, and that loop exists specifically to hold the level inside a range. Push the output up and the loop reduces its own signalling; take the pressure off and it returns. This is why exogenous testosterone suppresses the body’s own production, and it is also why a botanical that nudges one input rarely produces a durable shift in a healthy man whose loop is already working.

It also explains why the two most convincing results in this field come from men who were low to begin with. Restoring a suppressed system is a different task from raising a normal one, and the second has almost no supporting evidence. If your level has never been measured, you do not know which situation you are in — which is the argument for a blood test before a purchase, set out in how low testosterone is actually diagnosed.

Framed that way, the useful question about a botanical is not “how much will it raise my testosterone” but “what measurable thing did it change in a trial, and in whom”. For tongkat ali the honest answers are: the proportion of hypogonadal men reaching the normal range in an uncontrolled one-month study, and stress and mood scores in a four-week randomised one. Everything beyond that is inference.

Who should not take it

Anyone with a hormone-sensitive condition, anyone on hormone therapy, and anyone with liver or kidney disease should not take tongkat ali without medical advice. The same applies if you take medication of any kind: hand the ingredient name to a pharmacist. The wider interaction picture for this category is in side effects and safety of men’s vitality supplements, and the reasons a symptom deserves investigation before a purchase are in signs of low testosterone and when to see a doctor.

Frequently asked questions