It can seem like the number of T-Boosters on the market is getting out of hand. In fact, that’s a primary reason we’re always refining out Editor’s Picks, to make sure that you don’t have to read through hundreds of product reviews. When it comes to T-Boosting ingredients, the search for answers can be even more intimidating.
Someone recently asked me about Chrysin. In this article I’ll try to set the record a little straight about this plant compound, whether it works to raise Testosterone, and whether you need to have it.
What You Need to Know
What is Chrysin
Chrysin is a flavonoid (pigment chemical) belonging to the class Anthoxanthin. “Xanthin” just means “yellow,” and as this implies, Chrysis turns flowers such a passionflower and silver linden yellow–and in honey is partly responsible for that golden hue.
In the human body, Chrysin is considered a weak acid, which bonds with stronger acids to form unstable salts. (A salt, in chemistry, just means it has free ions that it can trade to dissolve into other compounds.) These salts have been studied to have anti-inflamatory, anti-oxidant, and anti-viral properties.
Chrysin and Testosterone
I’ve written in a number of other articles about the difference between in vitro and in vivo studies. Briefly speaking,
With Chrysin, study after study has shown that it can and does inhibit aromatase of testosterone into estrogen. The overwhelming majority of these studies have been in vitro.
When studies have moved over to animal and human in vivo studies, results have been far more mixed. In one pivotal study, cited by Chrysin advocates for over a decade, male rats exhibited much better sperm motility, sperm concentration and serum testosterone concentration.
The flip side has been in studies of gerbils, where testosterone was not increased, and studies of humans where testosterone levels weren’t changed at all.
What’s Really Going On?
In the case of Chrysin, we’re dealing with the tricky business in science where literally thousands of variables get in the way between the lab and the real world. In the lab, if we could isolate all the components in men that are responsible for testosterone production and aromatase into estrogen, Chrysin would very probably increase T levels every time.
The issue here, though, is that in the real world we take Chrysin into our bodies–where it becomes mashed together with our other food, churned in acid in our stomachs, and then passed through dozens of cell walls from our intestines to the tissues that could actually use them.
And Chrysin simply doesn’t make the journey intact. In fact, this problem has been the focus of a very recent study, because Chrysin does have multiple health benefits–potentially. But the fact remains that Chrysin is just not bioavailable for humans. It breaks down too quickly, becomes a victim of metabolization, and doesn’t pass through cell walls very well.
Final Word
I’ve reviewed literally hundreds of herbs, vitamins, foods, and minerals in my career. Some come through rigorous scientific analysis better than advertised–like pomegranate and fenugreek. Others, however, can be left alone. It appears that while some evidence suggests that Chrysin has future potential, for now, you can save your time, money, and attention for better proven ingredients for testosterone health.