Love Potions Rub FDA Wrong Way : Culture: Rhinoceros horn, ginseng root, Spanish fly. Long list of goodies touted as aphrodisiacs don’t work, and may be harmful, agency says.
Love is in the air. Could a rhinoceros horn be why?
So what if it’s just a lump of matted old hair. According to some romantics, horn of rhino is the ultimate turn-on. Well, next to bear gall bladders, that is. And certain toad venoms and turtle eggs and . . .
The list of legendary aphrodisiacs goes on and on--or it did until the Food and Drug Administration got ahold of it and said that there’s no scientific proof that any of them work.
This fact has not prevented a worldwide investment of faith and money in such sexual “stimulants” as Spanish fly, ginseng root, sarsaparilla and any number of exotic and not-so-exotic brews and powders.
“While the FDA determined that dried plants and insects and other substances . . . all are ineffective, unsafe, or both, desperate hope still springs eternal,” says David Zimmerman, author of the new “Complete Guide to Non-Prescription Drugs.”
Take strychnine, for example. On second thought, don’t.
While seeds of the Indian tree Strychnos nux vomica have been used for centuries as a sexual tonic, users should know that the bitter-tasting active ingredient is the lethal poison of the same name.
And how about that other sex-to-die-for favorite--Spanish fly?
No flies are involved here, only ground-up green beetles, which when ingested cause extreme irritation of the genitourinary tract. Such irritation can rush blood to the sex organs, which might be temporarily pleasing. But that’s more than offset by the severe, sometimes fatal, gastroenteritis that can follow.
In 1990, the FDA banned all commercial sales of aphrodisiacs “because their safety and effectiveness could not be proven,” says Zimmerman, whose guide contains 1,100 pages of findings and warnings from the FDA’s mammoth review of over-the-counter drugs.
But despite the nationwide ban on the sale of any product with aphrodisiac claims, such substances continue to be produced and sold as “energizers” and “tonics,” says Zimmerman.
Not one aphrodisiac manufacturer submitted a product for FDA review, so the agency compiled its own list of love potion ingredients for evaluation. Those studies, along with other scientific analyses, revealed that even some of the most ancient erotic stimulants have no physical effect whatsoever.
Indeed, in the case of rhino horns, bear gall bladders and turtle eggs, the primary effect has been environmental, not sexual. After being hunted down to supply the international aphrodisiac market, certain species of rhinoceros, bear and turtle became endangered species.
A secondary effect has been financial.
Ask the thousands of men who handed over their hard-earned money for a toad venom-based cream called “Man Dip” before authorities found the traditional Chinese aphrodisiac had been “adulterated” with the anesthetic phenazone, which de sensitizes any area to which it is applied.
The only drugs that have found to truly produce such stimulating results are certain human hormones.
Elaborate studies at Stanford University a few years ago, for example, proved once and for all that the male hormone testosterone does increase sex drive. For some, this was not front page news.
Reports on the arousal benefits of yohimbine--street name yoyo--proved more exciting, especially for impotent men. The drug is available only by prescription, but well-documented laboratory studies with male rats have shown it can strongly increase sex drive.
Today, chocolate is best known as what behavior specialists call “a social lubricant,” especially on Valentine’s Day.
Oysters and other seafoods heavy on zinc and iodine have enjoyed a reputation for triggering sexual desire because they stimulate the thyroid gland. When he wasn’t eating chocolate, Casanova was consuming 11 dozen raw oysters every day.
If Casanova were around today, he might be gobbling ginseng. In Chinese, ginseng means “man root” because the root resembles the human male figure. As a tea, chewing gum, soft drink and pick-me-up capsule, it has been a mainstay cure-all for traditional Asian physicians for about 5,000 years.
Although ginseng too has been outlawed for sale as an aphrodisiac, it continues to be sold for general health purposes. But when the buyer believes something will improve sexual performance, it may well do just that.
As Stanford physiologist Julian Davidson put it recently, “Ginseng is good for everything, so it’s probably good for the imagination.”
But for true romance, say the experts, true love is the best aphrodisiac.
