Personal Opinion of Shilajit Review
So Shilajit I’m fairly impressed with this one and after doing all the research that I have done over the past week, I had to do a couple of things I had to go buy some more so I hadn’t taken this supplement in some time and so after doing the research on this and seeing all the potential benefits of shilajit and effects that come along with Shilajit consumption I went and bought a couple of jars and the second thing that I had to do was to update my hormone optimization.
Shilajit’s ability to optimize hormone production in men but before I get ahead of myself let’s go ahead and jump into the five primary health effects of Shilajit as well as the research that backs up those effects and the proposed mechanisms as to why Shilajit affects the body and how it affects the body in a way that it does now.
Top 5 Benefits of Shilajit
- Increase Muscle Strength and Recovery
- Increase Testosterone Production
- Improve Exercise Performance
- Improve Cognition
- Improve General Health
Increase Muscle Strength and Recovery
The first health benefit that we’re going to talk about today is Shilajit’s ability to increase and improve muscle mass lean mass as well as muscular strength now this study in particular that is fairly promising showed the ability of Shilajit to preserve muscle mass and muscle strength while taking the participants that went through this study through an exhaustive exercise routine now the reason this study is so special is because it actually used recreationally active males and it is for any of you guys that have done any research on anything before know how difficult it is to come by compounds that have actually been studied in recreationally active people you just don’t see it and the reason for that is that typically speaking recreationally active men are usually fairly healthy and so you just don’t see a very large margin of benefit with specific compounds in this specific subpopulation however this study did use recreationally active men and did find that while these participants were taking about 500 milligrams of a purified Shilajit compound that while they went through the course of this exhaustive exercise routine for several weeks that there was a retention in maximal strength as well as maximal muscle retention as well now there are probably several mechanisms that are at play here but one of the more interesting mechanisms that has been proposed by a different study is that Shilajit has the ability to improve and increase the genetic markers of improved muscle hypertrophy as well as muscle retention now again this study is fairly promising as well because it was uh in human subjects now these subjects were obese that went through this study in particular however when you take these two studies and put them together it does show a promising ability of Shilajit to one preserve muscle function as well as increase the genetic markers and potential for muscle growth and strength as well.
Increase Testosterone Production
Now the second health benefit is that, Shilajit’s ability to actually increase testosterone as well as fertility in men now this study in particular showed a very very unique ability of Shilajit given over the course of several weeks to increase testosterone in healthy men now again for any of you guys that have done research on compounds that are used to boost testosterone Shilajit and ashwagandha are literally the only two compounds that have any research behind them in improving and increasing testosterone in healthy men which shows just how special not only this study in particular is but how special Shilajit is as a compound as well now this study also showed the ability of Shilajit to increase testosterone levels in infertile men as well as improved fertility by a very significant degree and so Shilajit is fairly rapidly becoming one of my most favorite compounds in conjunction with some other compounds to improve testosterone function for one myself but also to folks that i am making recommendations to on a regular basis now i don’t think that the mechanisms that are at play here are fully understood yet but some of the proposed mechanisms that are in play are one the antioxidant capacity of Shilajit specifically as a testicular antioxidant and it also appears that Shilajit is a fairly reliable source of several mineral compounds that also seem to be at play here um and so for any of you guys that have seen my other articles i am a fairly big fan of mineral consumption specifically for hormonal health the effects of zinc magnesium and boron specifically have been repeatedly shown to improve testicular function and hormone function in both men and women but on top of that Shilajit also seems to be a pro-dopaminergic compound meaning that it increases the function of dopamine in specific regions of the brain which typically speaking is going to suppress prolactin which is typically going to have a pro-testosterone effect in the body
Improve Exercise Performance
Now the third health benefit that we’re going to talk about today is Shilajit’s ability to improve exercise performance as well now the evidence here is only from rodent studies at the moment however i do think it is fairly promising just because of the mechanisms of action that are at play here but in this study in particular there was an improvement in overall exercise performance in the rodents that were put into a forced swim test and this study was hypothesizing that it was because of an improvement in mitochondrial function so for those of you that are familiar with the mitochondria the mitochondria is essentially like the powerhouse of the cell that produces APT which is your most basic fundamental form of energy in the body and so throughout these two studies there was several improvements in the markers surrounding mitochondrial function and so the researchers of both of these studies were hypothesizing that the improvement in exercise performance that was being observed in these rodent trials was because of an improvement in mitochondrial function now this one is super interesting to me because i am aware of only a handful of other compounds that have been shown in any type of living model to improve mitochondrial function and so when you add this possible health benefit on top of the proven effect to muscle retention and muscle recovery as well as the improvement in testosterone function within the body Shilajit is quickly becoming one of my most favorite compounds
Improve Cognition
Now the fourth health benefit and i’ll probably just classify it as a possible health benefit because the evidence here is also just performed in rodents at the moment however, the fourth possible health benefit is that there is a pro-cognitive benefit as well now even though the evidence here and the research here is extremely preliminary i did think it was notable to put this in here simply because the mechanisms that are at play and that is that one there is an apparent pro dopaminergic effect with Shilajit which is super important to me because when i got my test back a few months ago my-hormone panel that was done. I was extremely high in prolactin which isn’t that surprising to me just because of the stress that i’ve been under the last several months with introducing a new baby into our home and an extreme lack of sleep that comes along with that but again my prolactin was super high and so one of the main ways that you can reduce prolactin it was with pro dopaminergic compounds like mucunapurians which is really one of the only compounds that i was at the moment aware of that was pro-dopaminergic but it does appear that Shilajit is in the same class of compounds now i also like pro dopaminergic compounds because they also improve executive functioning and things like motivation as well which i think is something that every man should be desiring to optimize but what i also find interesting about Shilajit is that it also apparently is to some degree activating the glycine and gaba receptors which are two inhibitory receptors which kind of makes sense with a lot of the subjective experiences that i’m hearing online in reddit forums and things of that nature is that it’s Shilajit is super grounding which can be explained by the fact that it is activating some inhibitory receptors as well as some of the more motivating receptors like the dopaminergic receptors and so the evidence here isn’t fully robust yet but i did think it was super interesting and worthy of noting here
Improve General Health
Now the fifth and final health benefit that we’re going to talk about in this article is Shilajit’s ability to improve general health now there are a handful of studies that have been performed in both rodent and human trials that show Shilajit’s ability to affect blood lipid profile triglycerides as well as hdl and ldl cholesterol as well as improving just general antioxidant profiles within the body and so i’m not gonna spend a ton of time on this one in particular however i did think it was worthy to note just because when i am personally making decisions on compounds to take i’m always looking for compounds that are checking multiple boxes and it appears that Shilajit is just one of those compounds that not only improves hormone function athletic performance executive and cognitive performance but also is just in general a healthy compound to consume so this is personally one that i’m going to be adding into my stack.
