I want to provide a counterpoint to the Tongkat Ali hype. I am 26, sleep 7-8 hours, lift 4x a week, eat well, and manage stress reasonably well. My baseline testosterone was 618 ng/dL — solidly in the healthy range.
I took LJ100 200mg daily for 6 weeks. I tracked everything: mood (1-10 daily rating), gym performance (weights/reps), sleep quality (Oura ring data), libido (subjective 1-10), and energy levels.
After 6 weeks, my honest assessment:
Energy: No measurable change. My daily energy ratings averaged 6.8 pre and 7.0 during — within noise.
Libido: Possibly a slight increase during weeks 3-4, but it returned to baseline by week 5. I cannot rule out that the initial uptick was expectation-driven.
Gym performance: No change in strength or recovery. My training logs show the same progression I was already on.
Mood: No change.
Sleep: Oura data showed no statistically meaningful difference in any metric.
Blood work at 6 weeks: Total testosterone went from 618 to 641 ng/dL. Free testosterone from 14.2 to 14.8 pg/mL. These are within the normal variation of repeat testing. SHBG and cortisol were essentially unchanged.
My conclusion: Tongkat Ali probably does what the research says it does — it supports testosterone production in people whose production is compromised by stress, age, or other factors. But for a healthy young male with already-adequate hormone levels, there is nothing to "support." My HPG axis was already running at capacity.
I do not think Tongkat Ali is a scam. I think it has a specific use case that does not include me. The Huberman audience skews older and more stressed than the Reddit supplement community, which is why there is a disconnect between the rave reviews from 40-year-old professionals and the shrugs from 25-year-old gym bros.
Saved myself money by stopping. No regrets trying it with proper tracking.