Sunday October 18, 2009
Searching for link between Tongkat Ali, honey and sperm
KOTA BARU: The Men’s Health Clinic of University Sains Malaysia Hospital has embarked on two sexual and reproductive health projects to find out whether Tongkat Ali and pure honey can enhance sperm count.
At least 100 people have been recruited to consume pure extracts of Tongkat Ali at reasonable doses to see whether it would enrich sperm count and produce testosterone (male sex hormones), clinic head Assoc Prof Dr Shaiful Bahari Ismail said.
“The preliminary results that we have documented are quite encouraging. We will know the outcome by early next year.”
He said another project, utilising Tualang honey from Kedah or Borneo honey, would start soon following laboratory tests done on rats that showed that they had better sperm count after being fed with the honey.
“We have had a minor breakthrough with that. This has prompted us to try it on human subjects in two months time,” said Dr Shaiful Bahari, who completed a 12-month fellowship programme in male sexual and reproductive health at Monash University, Australia, in 2006.
He said those types of honey were found to be suitable for the research because they were collected from bees in an environment that was not affected by pollution.
These studies on libido were part of a combination of traditional and clinical research into sexual impotence, he said.
Dr Shaiful Bahari, whose research focused on chronic diseases especially diabetes and hypertension that is hypothetically linked to erectile dysfunction, said the male population began to develop sexual problems from the age of 40.
“This is variably based on their lifestyle but one thing is for sure that their sperm count would decrease as they grow older as proven by the Massachusetts Male Aging Studies.
“And when this happens, they would inevitably end up suffering from impotence or erectile dysfunction, which I believe is an indicator to detect major illnesses that is plaguing the male population,” he said, adding that his clinic had treated more that 700 patients so far.
He also said that the research was primarily done to compare the effectiveness of Tongkat Ali against honey.
“We will get another 100 test patients with low sperm count and divide them into two groups to find out which is better in terms of erectile and sperm count potency,” he said.
At present, he said that synthetically-produced ED drugs were being controlled by the Health Ministry to prevent wrong dosage consumption which would have negative impact on users.
By SYED AZHAR
The Star
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