Fadogia agrestis is an herbal extract from a plant native to Nigeria that’s seeing increased usage as a potential testosterone booster.
Thought to increase libido and improve sexual stamina by stimulating the production of higher levels of testosterone, fadogia agrestis is not as well-studied as some of the mainstay testosterone-boosting supplements, but it’s potentially worth a shot if you are serious about getting every edge you can when lifting your testosterone levels.
Our research team dug into the early-stage research on this potentially promising testosterone supplement and identified the best supplement brands out there if you want to add fadogia agrestis to your supplement stack.
Research
Rankings
Last updated: March 25, 2023
Fadogia agrestis supplements considered: 22
Hours of research: 19
Experts reviewed: 4
Scientific papers referenced: 11
1. Peak Performance Fadogia Agrestis
Peak Performance makes a super-simple fadogia agrestis supplement that comes in 500 mg vegan-friendly capsules.
It’s standardized to a 10:1 extract from the stem of the plant, and it’s completely devoid of extraneous binders and fillers. Thanks to its simplicity and purity, it garners our top overall spot.
2. Earth Elixir Tongkat Ali & Fadogia Agrestis
Among the fadogia agrestis and tongkat ali combo supplements, this one is our favorite. The 300 mg dosage of fadogia agrestis and the 250 mg of tongkat ali per capsule is superior to many of the other dual ingredient products out there.
On top of that, the only other ingredient is the cellulose-based capsule itself! This potent dosage and ultra-clean formulation make it our favorite combo supplement.
3. Etta Vita Fadogia Agrestis
If you are looking for a powerful dosage of fadogia agrestis, Etta Vita is a good potion. It’s standardized to a 20:1 concentration, and comes in heavy-duty capsules that deliver 600 mg of extract each.
Moreover, it also includes Bioperine, a.k.a. black pepper extract, which is known to enhance the bioavailability of a wide range of supplements (though fadogia agrestis and bioperine have not been studied together).
4. Evlution Nutrition Fadogia Agrestis
If you’re looking for a simple, standardized, high-dose fadogia agrestis supplement, Evlution is a good choice.
It delivers a solid 600 mg dosage in each capsule with no other active ingredients.
The only downside is that there are a few more binders and stabilizers than you’ll find in the absolute top-tier products, but if that doesn’t bother you, it’s a good high-dose option.
5. Dorado Nutrition Fadogia Agrestis with Tongkat Ali
Dorado Nutrition’s fadogia agrestis offering combines 300 mg of fadogia agrestis stem extract with 200 mg of tongkat ali, another herbal testosterone booster, in each capsule.
It’s a nice combo, though other products have it beat when it comes to raw dosage. Still, if you are looking for a fadogia / tongkat ali combo, it’s a solid choice.
6. Barlowe’s Herbal Elixirs Fadogia Agrestis
Barlowe’s specializes in herbal extracts, and their fadogia agrestis supplement is a good example of their approach: a simple, fairly high-dose supplement (600 mg at a 10:1 ratio) delivered in a simple cellulose-based capsule with no frills and no extras.
If all you need is a solid source of fadogia agrestis extract, Barlowe’s is a great option.
7. Toniiq Fadogia
At 600 mg of fadogia agrestis per capsule and a 30:1 extraction ratio, Toniiq is the highest-potency supplement on our list. However, more doesn’t always mean better–dosing recommendations for fadogia are vague, and animal studies suggest that taking too much might be counterproductive.
This potent formulation isn’t our first recommendation for most users, but if you know you’re in the market for a heavy-hitting, high-dose fadogia agrestis supplement, it’s a solid option to consider.
8. Naturebell Fadogia Agrestis with Tongkat Ali
Naturebell makes a pretty decent fadogia agrestis / tongkat ali combo that provides 300 and 200 mg of each respective ingredient.
The dosages are decent, but the main downsides are the gelatin-based capsules and the presence of a few binders and stabilizers like silicon dioxide and magnesium stearate.
9. Humanx Fadogia Agrestis
Humanx makes an extremely simple fadogia agrestis supplement that delivers 500 mg per capsule of stem extract, and zero extra ingredients.
It looks pretty good from a purity and simplicity perspective, though the fact that the fadogia agrestis extract is not standardized to a given concentration (e.g. 10:1 or 20:1) knocks it down a few points in our rankings.
10. Double Wood Supplements Fadogia Agrestis
Double Wood Supplements makes a fadogia agrestis supplement that’s on the lower end when it comes to dosage: it delivers 300 mg of fadogia agrestis per capsule, which is half of some of its competitors.
It’s also got a few more binders and stabilizers than some of the competition, which brings down its ranking a bit more.
On the plus side, though, its fadogia agrestis stem extract is standardized to a 10:1 ratio, meaning you’ll get a consistent dose every time.
Category winners
Best fadogia agrestis overall: Peak Performance Fadogia Agrestis
Because the research on fadogia agrestis is so sparse, if you’re experimenting with adding it to your routine for physical or sexual performance, you want a supplement that’s ultra-pure and has a solid, standardized dose.
That way, you can parse out exactly what benefits fadogia agrestis has, if any, for you. Peak Performance fits the bill perfectly with its 500 mg dosage and 10:1 standardized concentration, earning it our top overall pick.
Best fadogia agrestis with tongkat ali: Earth Elixir Tongkat Ali & Fadogia Agrestis
Earth Elixir provides solid dosages of both fadogia agrestis and tongkat ali in this combo supplement, and unlike other messy multi-ingredient supplements, has nothing else in the way of spurious or extraneous ingredients.
If you are looking to leverage fadogia agrestis in combination with tongkat ali for higher testosterone, this is our recommendation.
Best high-dosage fadogia agrestis supplement: Toniiq Fadogia
If you know you want a highly concentrated fadogia agrestis supplement, Toniiq Fadogia is our pick. It’s got a higher extraction ratio and a higher dosage per capsule than you’ll find in any of its competitors on the market.
As we noted above, higher doses of fadogia agrestis are definitely not a proven strategy for boosting testosterone, but if a higher dose is your goal, Toniiq is the way to go.
Best fadogia agrestis for men over 40: Earth Elixir Tongkat Ali & Fadogia Agrestis
For men over 40 looking to combat the age-related declines in testosterone, we like the tongkat ali / fadogia agrestis combo from Earth Elixir.
It pairs the more targeted potential effects of fadogia agrestis with some of the broader and better-researched benefits of tongkat ali to potentially give you a better chance at sustaining healthy testosterone levels.
Best fadogia agrestis for sexual performance: Peak Performance Fadogia Agrestis
Some of the early animal research on fadogia agrestis indicated that it increases libido and sexual stamina, and if you’re looking into using fadogia agrestis for this purpose, we like the solid but not excessive dosage of Peak Performance.
It has the added benefit of not including any other biologically active compounds, so you can be more confident that any benefits that you do see in your sexual performance are attributable to fadogia agrestis.
Best fadogia agrestis for higher testosterone: Peak Performance Fadogia Agrestis
Since higher test is the primary goal of fadogia agrestis supplementation, it should come as no surprise that our top overall pick is also our winner in this category.
Because most of the support for using fadogia agrestis for testosterone is anecdotal, we like the simple and pure formulation of Peak Performance–it makes it easy to A/B test the effects of fadogia agrestis in your supplement stack, by swapping it in or out and keeping everything else the same.
How we ranked
Because the research on fadogia agrestis to date focuses on controlled, purified dosages in lab animals, we put purity and controlled dosage at the forefront of our ranking criteria.
A great fadogia agrestis supplement had to be highly pure, flexible in its dosage, and devoid of extraneous ingredients like unnecessary binders and fillers to make our rankings. We used the following specific criteria:
Focus on fadogia agrestis. Most of our top fadogia agrestis supplements provide 100% pure fadogia agrestis, with no additional supplemental ingredients targeting testosterone.
This is the optimal formulation if you’re looking to isolate the effects of fadogia agrestis as you add it to your supplement stack.
However, we included a few products that also supply complementary compounds like tongkat ali alongside fadogia agrestis, for users who want these dual-ingredient combinations.
That being said, we ditched complicated “kitchen sink” formulations that included fadogia agrestis only as an afterthought.
Precise dosage. Because initial animal studies indicate that fadogia agrestis could be harmful or counterproductive in high doses, we only included capsule-based supplements, due to their more consistent dosage (versus powder-based products, where the exact dose can vary significantly from scoop to scoop).
We strongly preferred products that had a standardized extraction ratio, again to more carefully control the dosage from one product to another.
No unnecessary supplement bloat. We cut out any products that included too much in the way of binders and stabilizers.
These add nothing but bloat to the supplement, so we dropped any products crammed with too many of these unhelpful ingredients.
Who should buy fadogia agrestis?
Fadogia agrestis is best used by men who are looking for every possible advantage for boosting testosterone.
If you’re just a casual, non-athletic male looking for an easy boost to testosterone, fadogia agrestis probably isn’t the right pick.
However, there are men in a few different categories who may want to consider adding fadogia agrestis to their supplement stack.
Athletes in strength and power sports. If you’re pushing the limits of your body when it comes to strength and power, the potential testosterone boost from fadogia agrestis might be worth it.
This is particularly true if you’ve already got the basics covered, like optimizing your sleep and nutrition routines for maximum testosterone levels.
Though there’s no guarantee that fadogia agrestis will help, it might be worth a short if you are out of other options for boosting your T levels–especially if you combine fadogia agrestis with other advanced supplements for increasing testosterone levels.
Bodybuilders. No one tracks their hormone levels more closely than serious bodybuilders, and if maxing out your testosterone is going to push you above your current plateau, fadogia agrestis might be worth consideration when reworking your supplement stack.
Particularly in combination with other cutting-edge potential testosterone boosters, like turkesterone and tongkat ali, you might be able to leverage the potential (though unproven in humans beyond anecdotal reports) action of fadogia agrestis on raw testosterone production to optimize your testosterone levels by balancing both testosterone and its binding proteins.
Men who aren’t getting enough of a lift in testosterone from mainline supplements. If you aren’t getting the results you want from standard go-to options for boosting testosterone (like magnesium and zinc, which have proven testosterone benefits at least in men who are deficient in these minerals), you might consider turning to a more experimental supplement like fadogia agrestis.
You can give it a try for a few weeks and see if you are experiencing the gains in testosterone, libido, and sexual stamina that you want, and decide from there whether or not to keep it in your supplement stack.
FAQ
Q: Where does fadogia agrestis come from?
A: Fadogia agrestis is an extract from the stem and bark of a bush-like plant that is native to Nigeria. It’s long been used in folk medicine, but only recently came to the attention of nutrition and supplementation enthusiasts thanks to research done in the mid-2000s on its biochemical effects in lab animals.
Unlike some other emerging testosterone supplements like turkesterone or tongkat ali, research on fadogia agrestis hasn’t yet made the jump to clinical trials in humans, so its efficacy is far more uncertain than some other herbal compounds used as testosterone boosters.
Q: Does fadogia agrestis have benefits beyond boosting testosterone?
A: One study on fadogia agrestis reported anti-inflammatory and analgesic (pain-killing) properties when extracts of fadogia agrestis were tested in rats (1).
In some experiments, fadogia agrestis extract performed comparably with aspirin when it came to reduction in observed animal pain and inflammation. This study was based on reports on the local folk use of fadogia agrestis in Nigeria, where it is commonly used for pain, inflammation, and irritation.
As with the purported effects of fadogia agrestis on testosterone levels, this study was limited to lab animals, and may not necessarily generalize to humans.
Q: Is fadogia agrestis toxic?
A: Research published in 2008 suggests that high doses of fadogia agrestis in rats could induce changes in the activity of liver and kidney enzymes (2).
Concerningly, these doses were the same (per unit body mass) as the doses used in previous research on the efficacy of fadogia agrestis in boosting testosterone and libido in rats, so there may not be much separation between an effective and a toxic dose.
Moreover, other research found that high doses of fadogia agrestis actually caused damage to testicular cells in rats, though only at the highest dosages (3).
Like with the benefits of fadogia agrestis, its potential toxicity needs to be assessed in humans, or at least in a more human-like animal model, for stronger evidence.
Q: Does fadogia agrestis boost testosterone?
A: If you’re a (literal) lab rat, there’s good evidence that fadogia agrestis will boost your testosterone–a 2005 study showed significant increases in testosterone, alongside significant increases in sexual libido and performance, in a sample of male rats (4).
Some aspects of this study have been replicated in other research, but the real test of fadogia agrestis’ performance–a clinical trial in humans–has yet to be done.
So, arguments about its ability to boost testosterone mostly revolve around its known biochemical pathways of action, versus clinical results in humans.
Q: How much fadogia agrestis does Andrew Huberman take?
A: Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman takes 425 mg of fadogia agrestis per day, alongside 400 mg of tongkat ali. According to comments made on Tim Ferris’ podcast, Huberman’s regimen increased his testosterone levels by about 200 points, with no negative impacts on other biomarkers of his health.
Though this is just one anecdote, Huberman’s routine is based on his analysis of the specific biochemistry of fadogia agrestis and how it stimulates testosterone production in the testes.
The tongkat ali pairing aims to “smooth out” the delivery of fadogia agrestis to tissues throughout the day, instead of having testosterone levels spike and plunge.
Q: Should you combine fadogia agrestis with other supplements to boost testosterone?
A: One popular combination supplementation stack is fadogia agrestis to stimulate testosterone production in the testes, plus tongkat ali alongside to increase the binding capacity of the testosterone to ensure it’s delivered at a steady concentration to your tissues.
This argument is mostly biochemical in nature; there aren’t any human studies to draw on that show that combining fadogia agrestis with tongkat ali enhances the efficacy of either supplement.
In comparison to fadogia agrestis, tongkat ali has a better track record of research in humans, so this combination is definitely in the experimental category.
You might also find fadogia agrestis in combined-ingredient testosterone supplements alongside compounds like horny goat weed, DHEA, zinc, turkesterone, or other well-studied testosterone boosters.
In these cases, fadogia agrestis is at best serving a niche use, adding a bit to the overall potency of a testosterone booster (though it’d be hard to parse out exactly how much of the overall benefit is attributable to fadogia agrestis).
Q: Is fadogia agrestis a risky supplement?
A: To date there are no human studies on the safety of fadogia agrestis. From some peoples’ perspective, this itself makes it a risky supplement.
Moreover, there are some animal studies showing that fadogia agrestis could alter levels of certain enzymes related to liver and kidney function. While fadogia agrestis is used as an herbal medicine in Nigeria, it does not see the same widespread usage that herbal treatments like ginseng see, which might give you increased confidence in their safety.
So, from all three of these perspectives, fadogia agrestis is “risky” in the sense of having a great deal of uncertainty surrounding its safety; however it does not have a proven track record of health risks either.
Related articles
Recap
Fadogia agrestis is squarely in the “experimental” supplement category: though some early-stage animal model research has shown promising results when it comes to increasing testosterone and libido levels, its value hasn’t been proven yet in human studies.
That means that fadogia agrestis is best reserved for people who are looking for every possible advantage when it comes to testosterone levels, like athletes and bodybuilders, or for people who tried other mainstream testosterone supplements and haven’t gotten the benefits they desire.
Though it’s typically taken at doses of around 400 mg per day, that’s based on anecdotal reports from users, not clinical trials.
Reports on its safety are similarly sparse: some research, again in animals, suggests it could alter levels of liver enzymes, though no human safety data are available aside from its history as an ‘ethnomedicine’ in rural parts of Nigeria.
Fadogia agrestis could be a secret weapon for boosting testosterone, or it could be useless–only more research will tell whether this supplement is worth consideration by a broader swath of men, or whether you should focus your attention on more effective alternatives.
For BodyNutrition‘s #1 fadogia agrestis recommendation, click here.
