Can Supplements Cure Erectile Dysfunction And Improve Libido?

Yes, supplements can indeed help you overcome erectile dysfunction and improve your sex drive.

Because erectile dysfunction and a lackluster libido can be caused by deficiencies of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or other essential nutrients. These deficiencies can be restored with supplements.

You may also suffer from low production of testosterone, dopamine or nitric oxide (all of which are essential for functioning well sexually). There are supplements that can directly boost these.

Many herbal supplements have been used successfully for thousands of years and by several different cultures, to boost sexual desire and improve sexual functions.

It would be strange if there was nothing to them, no? Let’s explore.. 

Before we get into how the supplements can improve sexual functions, let’s first distinguish between the two main categories of supplements:

Basic and advanced.

Examples of basic supplements are: A multi-vitamin formula, fish oil, a calcium supplement, or a B12 supplements.

These supplements are intended to cover deficiencies of basic nutrients in your body. A deficiency of a basic nutrient, by the way, can cause ED and libido problems.

The advanced supplements on the other hand, aim at improving your sexual functions by (normally) targeting your testosterone, dopamine or nitric oxide production. These supplements are often herbal, but they can also be synthetic.

Let’s first talk about the basic supplements.

If you don’t eat enough of the right foods, you are likely to be deficient in certain vitamins, minerals, fatty acids or other essential nutrients.

And if so, your body will normally not work as well as it could, or should.

This can impact many sides of your life, such as your energy level, your immune system, your memory, your concentration, your muscle recovery times, etc.

And it can also impact your sexual functions.

Therefore, if you are deficient in one or more essential nutrients, you may find it more difficult to ‘get it up’, and your sex drive may be lower than normal.

Research studies have shown that it is particularly common to be deficient of one or more of the following:

In addition, with natural foods and drinks, I will also get other healthy ingredients such as phytonutrients, fiber, antioxidants, etc.

However, it’s not always possible, nor practical, to get all the essential nutrients from foods and drinks.

Therefore, I also take supplements.

The problem?

We wash all our foods, and there is normally chlorine in our drinking killing all the bacteria. Hence, we don’t get much vitamin B12 the natural way.

Meat and dairy also contain some vitamin B12.

Since I don’t eat meat or dairy products, and because my food is essentially devoid of vitamin B12, I take a vitamin B12 supplement.

Vitamin D is found in some foods, but very few of these foods contain large amounts of this vitamin. Hence, it’s difficult to get enough vitamin D from what you eat (and drink).

However, your body can produce this vitamin D. When sunlight falls on your skin, cholesterol in your skin’s outer layer is converted to vitamin D3.

And since it is difficult to get enough vitamin D from foods, you need the sun to provide the balance.

I therefore try to get good amounts of sunshine when I can. And not only for Vitamin D production, but sunshine is also healthy for many other reasons.

I have actually even moved to a sunnier place to get more of it. 

However, in the winter months when I get less sunshine, I also take a vitamin D supplement.

During periods with lots of exercise, I also take a supplement containing zinc and magnesium. The reason is that the body flushes out substantial amounts of zinc magnesium during exercise.

And I also take an iodine supplement, as it is likely I don’t get enough iodine from the foods I eat.

Let’s move on to the advanced supplements.

So I try to get all the nutrients I need primarily from foods and drinks. And then I cover deficiencies with basic supplements.

However, when I want to (or need to) give my sexual abilities an extra gear, I turn to the advanced supplements. These can be amazingly powerful.

But how do these supplements boost your sexual functions?

They improve sexual functions (mainly) through the increased production of:

Before we get into the details, I want to address something important:

Supplements will normally only have an effect if you are already deficient.

Meaning, if you take a supplement to increase testosterone, this will normally only have an effect if you are already testosterone deficient.

If on the other hand, your testosterone level is normal, this supplement will normally have no, or very little effect. 

In other words, you cannot supercharge your testosterone level. You can only get to baseline.

This is true for both the basic and the advanced supplements.

Let’s investigate the testosterone boosting ability of supplements.

Testosterone is the primary male sex hormone. It underlies, regulates and controls everything sexual that goes on in your body.

Therefore, you need adequate production of testosterone in order to have a sex drive, to get erections, and to function well sexually.

And if you don’t produce enough, your sex-life will most likely suffer.

So how do these supplements boost your testosterone production?

Some do it by containing ingredients that are needed to produce something called DHEA, which is again needed to produce testosterone.

Other by stimulating the production of what is called luteinizing hormone, which is a messenger that instructs your testicles to produce testosterone.

Some by impairing the ability of something called SHBG to bind to testosterone, so that more testosterone is ‘free’ (or unbound to proteins).

Other supplements can decrease your estrogen level, some can decrease your cortisol level. Both will normally have a positive effect on your testosterone level.

If you are testosterone deficient, and you take a supplement to improve your testosterone production, you can expect to get a temporary boost in your testosterone level.

I say temporary because you can only expect the boost for as long as you take the supplement.

Some of the supplements that can improve testosterone production are: D aspartic acid, Fenugreek, Horny Goat Weed, Mucuna Pruriens, Tongkat Ali, Tribulus Terrestris and ZMA.

If you want to purchase supplements that increase testosterone production, you find them here.

And if you want to learn how to boost testosterone naturally, you can read this guide.

What is dopamine?

Dopamine is a messenger molecule. It is therefore used to send messages.

When it comes to your sex drive, dopamine’s messages are critical.

Here is how it works:

Let’s say you see a gorgeous woman across the room, and she catches your attention. You find her attractive and you want to connect with her.

What just happened in your brain?

Your brain started to produce dopamine to motivate you to have sex with her.

That’s how your ‘caveman’ brain works. 

Needless to say, you wouldn’t normally approach her and attempt to have sex with her (at least not right away), but this is what your brain wants you to do. 

Because when your brain wants to motivate you to do procreate, it produces dopamine which then triggers a very strong craving in you.

If there was no dopamine production, you would be indifferent.

That was sex drive. Dopamine is also essential in order to get erections.

When it comes to getting an erection, dopamine is the messenger that kicks things off.

It sends the initial signal in your brain that sets off the entire process, which eventually makes your penis fill with blood so that it becomes erect.

Therefore dopamine is essential in order to get erections. 

If your dopamine production is low, and you take a supplement to improve your dopamine production, you can expect to get a temporary boost in your dopamine level.

Some of the supplements that can improve dopamine production are Mucuna Pruriens, L-tyrosine, L-theanine, Rhodiola Rosea and ZMA.

If you want to purchase supplements that increase dopamine production, you find some of them here. 

Nitric oxide is a molecule that is simply necessary in order for you to get an erection.

Let me explain:

Every blood vessel consists of several layers. Think of it as a tube inside a tube inside a tube. One of these layers is a muscle, called smooth muscle.

When your penis is flaccid, these smooth muscles clench around the blood vessels, and therefore squeeze the blood out of your penis.

In order for blood to flow into your penis, these smooth muscles need to relax. And in order for this to happen, nitric oxide needs to be produced and then diffused into the smooth muscles of your penis.

In other words, they can make you more sexually charged, make you think more about sex, and make you want more sex.

The supplements do this mainly through increased production of testosterone and dopamine, both of which are essential for your sex drive.

You will normally get this effect 1-6 hours or so, after taking the supplements. The effects only lasts a certain amount of time, as your body processes them and washes them out of our body.

However, of the three main effects from these advanced supplements, this is often the weakest one.

Meaning, that for most men, the increase in sex drive is not very pronounced.

The reason most men take these supplements is to ‘get it up’. And also to get stronger, fuller and longer lasting erections.

When these supplements are taken correctly (more about that shortly), they can produce amazing effects.

Firstly, they can help you get erections super easily.

Secondly, they can help you get erections that are very hard and full.

And lastly, give you erections that last practically for as long you want.

In fact, they can produce erections that are on par with those you may get from taking pharmaceutical drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

By the way, Viagra, Cialis and Levitra only target the nitric oxide channel.

The advanced supplements target all three: Testosterone, dopamine and nitric oxide (some target one, some two and some all three).

But these supplements can be even better than pharmaceutical drugs.

How?

Firstly, they normally don’t have any negative side effects. So no red face, no runny nose, no funny vision and no headaches.

And secondly, because they can also make the pleasurable sensations from having sex even stronger.

Yeah, they can make sex even more intense. 

A pharmaceutical drug like Viagra, Cialis or Levitra only help you ‘get it up’.

But some of these advanced supplements can also amplify the sensations from sex.

Meaning, they can make the pleasurable sensations from sex feel even more intense. The pleasure you experience can be heightened to a level you didn’t know existed before.

So if the best sex you ever had before was a 10 on a scale from 0-10, you might reach 12 with these supplements!

They do this primarily by increasing your testosterone and dopamine production.   

In fact, the reason I still take these supplements sometimes (even though I have overcome my ED), is to get these amplified sensations.

I mentioned this already, but I wanted to stress it again:

When you take these supplements, they normally only give a temporary boost to nitric oxide, testosterone and dopamine. 

That is because the supplements are absorbed by your body, deliver their impact, and are then broken down and flushed out of your system.

Hence, if you were to maintain the effects, you would need to keep taking them.

Which also means that they do not fix your underlying problem, they just deliver a temporary boost. Therefore, taking these supplements would not be the ideal long-term solution.

It would be better to find a natural and permanent solution to the deficiency. Normally, you achieve this by getting your body and mind back in balance.

That said:

Most of these supplements have another great benefit. They are actually good for you. 

Meaning that they (particularly the herbal ones) have several positive effects on your mind and body.

They may reduce certain illnesses, increase sperm quality, can be antibacterial, antiviral, restore hormonal balances, etc.

Compare that to pharmaceutical drugs, which generally only have negative side effects.

I find supplements absolutely fascinating!

After having experienced the ability of the advanced supplements to give me amazing erections, as well as to amplify the pleasurable sensations from sex, I have become a big admirer and user of these supplements. 

And because I have had such amazing effects from many of these advanced supplements, I have dedicated an entire section on Truelibido to them. 

In this section, I have profiled my favorite ones. I give you some history and background, the pathways in which they work, the scientific studies that have been done, and also my experience using them. 

You find them here.

Let’s talk about pharmaceutical drugs for a minute.

The pharmaceutical drugs, Viagra, Cialis and Levitra (and others), will enable many men with erectile dysfunction to get erections. 

I have tried these, and they had the desired effect on me as well (at least initially). 

However, I don’t like to take any drug or medication. Whether for a cold or for getting erections.

First of all, I want my body to fix the problem itself. Whether it’s a headache, pain, or a limp penis. 

Letting my body fix the problem is likely to make me stronger. It will also teach me to be nicer to myself in the future, so I don’t cause myself the same pain again. 

Secondly, I don’t like the side-effects from these drugs.

The pharmaceutical drugs gave me really bad side effects, such as headaches, blurred vision, a red hot face, and a stuffy nose. 

A third reason that I don’t like these drugs is that they do nothing that will help you overcome the underlying cause of the problem. 

They don’t help you get rid of erectile dysfunction, they only temporarily treat the symptom (inability to get an erection).

So by starting to take these drugs, I was on a path to keep taking them forever..

Therefore, popping a pill right before having sex, was never something I liked doing. It really bothered me, and it was something I really wanted to quit.

The problem at the time? I just didn’t know any other way to get erections.

I waited in anticipation. 

But nothing happened. 

There was no effect, not even a sliver of improvement. Complete failure. 

My first experiment with an herbal remedy was a big disappointment. My frustrations grew.

But I didn’t give up. Instead I stepped it up a notch.

I now started reading, studying and educating myself about erectile dysfunction and libido problems. I really wanted to understand what was happening to my body. 

From time to time, I came across rave reviews or articles about herbal remedies. I discarded most of them because of my initial failure. But I also got intrigued from time to time.

After all, they had been used for thousands of years across several different cultures, and there were many anecdotes and stories of success. 

People had been telling and writing about the effects of these remedies for ages.

It couldn’t all be a hoax, could it?

I kept repeating these experiments a few more times. I tried new and different herbal supplements, but was left in disappointment as the effect would never come. 

Then I temporarily gave up. Then I tried something new a little later, but failed again. 

I started suspecting that all supplements were probably a scam designed to take unsuspecting people’s money.

Although this supplement had some effect, and gave me encouraging feedback, it was not able to solve my ED or libido problems. Therefore I put them away.

Later I also had a similar experience with an herb called Horny Goat Weed. 

I took the capsules twice a day as recommended, and I again felt a slight change in the sensations from sex. But it was just as subtle as the effect I had experienced from Tribulus Terrestris.

L-arginine, also gave me a subtle but encouraging effect.

I remember once taking 1.5 grams in the morning before heading to work, and out of no-where, getting an erection on the bus.

This happened more than once, but this was neither able to solve my ED or libido problems.

A couple of years later (after I had once again discarded the supplements), I decided to zoom in on the actions of the past that had yielded a little bit of success.

I wanted to dig deeper to try to find out whether this little success could be expanded, and turned into something that could yield more success.

I had in the past had a tiny bit of success with some of the supplements. So I wanted to explore Tribulus Terrestris and Horny Goat Weed in more detail. 

I had a suspicion that the supplements I had taken in the past were simply not potent enough. 

So I decided to get some stronger stuff.

I started off by buying a high grade Horny Goat Weed extract. 

It contained icariin extracted to 50%, and was in loose powder form.

It was significantly more expensive than any herb I had bought in the past.

I had high hopes that this was going to be the real deal. 

I took 250 mg of this extract mixed in a cup of water twice a day, as was the recommendation on the package. 

But I felt no effect. Nothing happened. Not even a hint of an effect.

I was again despaired. At this point, I was close to giving up. 

But before letting go of my hopes entirely, I wanted to give Tribulus Terrestris a shot. 

So I bought a high grade powder version of Tribulus Terrestris, containing saponins extracted to 90%. 

But I thought that if I were to take 250 mg twice a day again, nothing would probably happen. It would probably just be another disappointment.

I was looking at the pack of powder, and I thought: ‘Why don’t I just try a whole tablespoon? What’s the worst that can happen..?”  

So that’s what I did. I took a table spoon of Tribulus Terrestris (it was almost 10 grams), mixed it in a cup of water and drank it up. This was 40x the recommended dose!

It tasted horrible, absolutely gut wrenching.. 

About an hour later, after my girlfriend came back to the apartment, we sat down in the sofa chatting.

We chatted, then hugged and then started kissing.

And all of a sudden, I got a rock hard erection. This never happened! This was new! 

Kissing lead to touching, clothes started flying off, and soon we were in our bedroom having sex.

And oh my goodness! This was the most amazing sex I had had for years and years! It was on a different level! 

First of all, I had a rock hard erection during the entire intercourse. It was so firm and hard, it was almost frightening. I can’t remember having had such a full and persistent erection for many, many years.

And even after we stopped, it still remained semi-hard for a very long time. This was all new!

I have learned that in order for these supplements to have great effects on me, there are 3 ‘things’ that are essential: