Shilajit and Low Desire After Menopause: What a Triple-Blind Trial Found

Is there an actual clinical trial on shilajit and sexual desire?

Mosavi and colleagues, publishing in Traditional Medicine Research in 2023, ran a triple-blind trial. The participants, the people administering the study, and the people analyzing the results were all kept unaware of who received the real supplement. That design matters. It removes the most common way a sexual-function study gets skewed, which is expectation, on either the participant's side or the researcher's.

Forty-eight women were randomized. Forty-three completed the trial. Half took 200 milligrams of oral shilajit twice daily, and half took a matching placebo, for 60 days.

The measurement tool was the Female Sexual Function Index, a 19-item questionnaire used across sexual medicine research. It scores six separate domains, desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain. This is not a self-report of "do you feel better." It is a structured instrument built to separate one domain of sexual function from another, so a change in one area cannot hide behind a change (or a lack of one) in another.

Why the scoring detail matters

A single combined score can hide a result that is real in some areas and absent in others. This trial reported both the total score and the six domain scores separately. That separation is what makes it possible to say exactly what moved and what didn't, instead of rounding the whole thing up or down to one tidy headline.

• Total score, tracked from baseline through day 90
• Six domain scores, tracked the same way, on their own
• No severe side effects flagged in either arm

What moved, and what didn't?

The total Female Sexual Function Index score rose from a baseline near 23 to nearly 29 by day 90 in the shilajit group, while the placebo group's score stayed flat near 22 across the same period.

Broken down by domain, four areas reached statistical significance against placebo:

• Desire improved significantly
• Arousal improved significantly
• Lubrication improved significantly
• Satisfaction improved significantly

Two areas did not reach statistical significance:

• Orgasm did not differ significantly from placebo
• Pain did not differ significantly from placebo

Overall sexual quality of life rose in the shilajit group but did not reach statistical significance either.

That pattern, four domains moving and two not, is worth taking at face value rather than smoothing over. A trial that found everything significant, across every domain, at 60 days, would be the less believable result. This one has edges, and the edges are part of what makes it a real finding instead of a marketing claim dressed as one.

On side effects

The trial reported no severe side effects in either group.

How does this compare to what she's usually offered?

Low desire after menopause usually gets one of a handful of answers, and it helps to see them next to each other rather than one at a time.

None of the rows in that table cancel out another. The point of setting them side by side is narrower than that. This is a real, tested option with real edges to it, not a leap of faith and not a prescription-only conversation either.

Why would a mineral resin affect any of this?

Shilajit is a purified resin, harvested from rock formations in mountain ranges including the Altai range, carrying fulvic acid and more than 80 trace minerals in a form the body absorbs as food rather than as medication. Fulvic acid's documented role is as a mineral carrier, a molecule built to bind mineral ions and move them across cell membranes.

This is worth stating plainly, because it is the question that comes up first. Shilajit is not a hormone, and it does not add estrogen to your body. Fulvic acid supports the body's own estrogen signaling, which is a mechanism distinct from hormone replacement and is not a substitute for it. The mechanism at work in this trial has not been isolated down to a single pathway. What exists is a placebo-controlled human result and a plausible general direction, mineral status alongside estrogen-signaling support, not a fully mapped chain from mineral to receptor to outcome.

What this is not claiming

• Not a hormone, and not a source of added estrogen
• Not tested against testosterone or any prescription therapy head to head
• Not proven to work through any single named receptor or pathway

What does this trial not tell you?

Precision here matters more than enthusiasm, so the limits go first, without softening them.

• This is one trial, run at a single site in Iran, and it has not been independently replicated
• Forty-three completers is a small sample for a domain as individually variable as sexual function
• Traditional Medicine Research is not indexed in PubMed, which is part of why this trial doesn't surface in a standard search the way larger journals do
• Orgasm, pain, and overall quality of life did not reach statistical significance, and an honest summary says so rather than rounding those results up
• No head-to-head comparison against hormone therapy or testosterone exists

Stated at the level the data actually earns, here is what the trial supports. In this placebo-controlled study, oral shilajit was associated with significant improvement in desire, arousal, lubrication, and satisfaction over 60 days, with no severe side effects reported. It does not support a claim broader than that.

Across every human study run on shilajit generally, zero serious adverse events have been reported. Optimum's shilajit is sourced from the Altai mountains and third-party lab tested for heavy metals and mycotoxins on every batch, from a small family owned company out of Florida.

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