Vitex

I just picked up some Solaray Vitex, 400mg per cap. The label recommended daily usage is 4-6 caps per day, which is 4-6xs the amount contained in a 3 cap dose of M (400mg). Normally, most general health supplement companies underdose the product from a bodybuilding perspective; it’s odd to me that the label recommends so much. So here are my questions:

When using Vitex alone, has anyone experienced better results w/ higher dosages, maybe 800 or 1200 miligrams daily?

Is 400mg all you need to maximize natural test production when stacked w/ Tribex? Would more not do any good? Would more possibly be better?

The stuff is pretty cheap, so I'm willing to up the dosage. There must be some practical use for such a high dosage, given the label recommendations. Maybe higher dosages provide benefits that bodybuilders need not be concerned with; I'm only concerned with increased natural test production. Thanks guys,

Joel Marion

Vitex is marketed as a natural hormone replacement for women; the higher recommended dose is targeted to women seeking an estrogen replacement-type effect. I don’t know if it actually works in that capacity or not, but for men I think one cap is fine; higher doses (up to 1200 mg./day) never did anything more for me than 1 400 mg. dose in the morning.

Just a note, remember that “M” has a lot of other E-blasting stuff in it, hence the smaller dosage of vitex. Can’t remember who said it, but one T-mag staffer said that while vitex is good, it’s the other stuff that really makes “M” shine as an estrogen reducer. I also read somewhere that the T-boosting benefits are fairly small, nothing like Tribex and you have to take it (vitex) a while to see them.

Tek - I believe it was Chris who recently addressed that, though I could be wrong.

Joel, I did a search, and it turns out this exact question was asked before, back in 2000. Here is Bill Robert's response:

" I know that the regular Solaray product of 400 mg per capsule works fine at one capsule per day. The extract, I don't know, and it is possible that the extract may not be as good, since it is not being standardized for all of the active components. (In other words, the extract may, unless proven otherwise, be leaving things behind that should be there, and are there in the herb itself.)

The dosage recommended by Solaray and others may (or may not) be preferable for women, but for men using it to improve testosterone, two capsules seem no better than one, nor six better than one. "

Sorry I didn't have this information when we spoke last night; I had to dig around in the search engine quite a bit to find it. Hope this helps.

This topic was explored on the forum a good while back probably before you showed up posting here. The verdict was that 1 400 mg solaray vitex seemed to be all one needed and higher doses didnt show any increased benefit. I myself have found this to be true as well.

There’s a big difference in dosing depending on whether the herbal supplement is “standardized” or “fingerprinted”. There’s a big difference in cost too. It all comes down to how much of the active ingredient is really in the capsules. You might see a higher dosage on your capsules because there is less of the active ingredients in your particular capsules. I’m not an herbalist, but maybe somebody else can explain the different grades of herbals.

Yes, it was Chris who mentioned that the other components of M are the real anti-E’s, after all Vitex doesn’t really have any anti-E properties. Funny that, I read the boards, too. I’m not using it as an anti-E (I dont know anyone that would, because it doesn’t possess that property), which should have been pretty evident from my post.

Thank you to those that answered the question at hand. I'll go w/ 1-400mg cap in the morning w/ 3 caps of Tribex.

I was going to post about the previous thread, but JR and Kelly beat me to it. So I’ll just say that I tried Vitex with Tribex a while back and found that the only thing I noticed was an increase in acne. (Interestingly, this doesn’t happen to me with M…)


I didn’t have lab assays done, so it might be that my test production increased. I don’t know. But I do know that my gym preformance wasn’t any better, nor did I really feel it in bed. It was just the acne. So for me, Vitex wasn’t that great.


However, I DEFINITELY recommend feeding it to your girlfriend if she has any issues with PMS at all. I gave some to mine and the change has been incredible! Soooo much easier to live with during that week…