Most men shopping for a natural testosterone booster for men want the same thing. Something that comes from a plant, that they can take every day without thinking about it, and that has more behind it than a label with a flexed arm on it. The shelf usually comes down to six names: tongkat ali, ashwagandha, fenugreek, shilajit, zinc and vitamin D. Pine pollen is the seventh, and it has a fact none of the others have. Testosterone itself was isolated from the pollen in a lab in 1971.
Five natural testosterone supplements men already know
Tongkat ali
Tongkat ali is the root of Eurycoma longifolia, a shrub from the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia. It is sold as capsules of standardised root extract. In a 2021 trial in Food and Nutrition Research, Chinnappan and colleagues gave 105 men aged 50 to 70 either 100 mg, 200 mg or a placebo for 12 weeks. Total testosterone in the 200 mg group was higher than placebo from week 4 onward.
Ashwagandha
Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) is a root from the Ayurvedic tradition of India, sold as capsules or powder. Lopresti and colleagues ran a 16 week crossover trial, published in the American Journal of Men's Health in 2019, with overweight men aged 40 to 70. During the ashwagandha weeks, testosterone was 14.7% higher than during the placebo weeks, and DHEA-S was 18% higher.
Fenugreek
Fenugreek is a seed most people know from curry. The supplement is a seed extract (Trigonella foenum-graecum), taken as a capsule. Rao and colleagues gave 120 men aged 43 to 70 either 600 mg a day or a placebo. At week 12, total and free testosterone were higher in the fenugreek group (The Aging Male, 2016).
Shilajit
Shilajit is a dark resin that seeps from rock in the Himalayas, sold as a paste, a powder or capsules. In a 90 day trial of 75 men aged 45 to 55, published in Andrologia, 250 mg of purified shilajit twice a day was followed by a 20% rise in total testosterone and a 19% rise in free testosterone.
Zinc and vitamin D
Men usually get these two in a multi, and the studies were run on men who were low to begin with. Prasad's group gave zinc to nine elderly men with marginal zinc levels, and their serum testosterone went from 8.3 to 16.0 nmol/L over six months (Nutrition, 1996). Pilz and colleagues gave 54 men 3,332 IU of vitamin D a day for a year, and total testosterone in the vitamin D group went from 10.7 to 13.4 nmol/L (Hormone and Metabolic Research, 2011).
Pine pollen is the one where chemists went looking for the hormone in the plant and found it.
Testosterone was found in the pollen itself
In 1971 a team in Zagreb led by M. Šaden-Krehula published a short paper in the journal Experientia. They had analysed pollen from Scots pine and identified testosterone, epitestosterone and androstenedione in it. It was the first time testosterone had been isolated from a plant. That paper is why pine pollen turns up on almost every list of natural testosterone supplements.
Pine pollen has a much longer record in China, where it is called song hua fen. It has been written up in Chinese herbal texts since the Tang dynasty and is listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020 edition). In Korea, cooks press it into small tea cakes called songhwa dasik and stir it with honey into a drink called songhwa-milsu. Our guide to pine pollen, from the tree to the bottle covers that history in more detail.
Total testosterone rose from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL in 8 weeks.
What two pilot studies of men measured
The newer research is two open-label pilots run by Wolkodoff, Haase and colleagues and published in the Annals of Clinical and Medical Case Reports. Both used a pine pollen tincture, 1 mL a day, held under the tongue as half a dropper in the morning and half at night, five days on and two days off, for eight weeks.
- 2024 pilot, older men. Ten men aged 47 to 78. Average total testosterone went from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL. One man went from 282 to 703 ng/dL. Scores on the qADAM questionnaire, which asks men about energy, drive, erections and mood, rose from 23.9 to 31.7.
- 2025 pilot, younger men. Eleven men aged 25 to 50. Free testosterone went from 10.48 to 11.72 ng/dL, and SHBG (the protein that binds testosterone in the blood) fell from 29.1 to 27.4 nmol/L. The men's sexual function scores went from 15.27 to 20.09.
Those numbers come from men taking a tincture under the tongue, which is the same way Mara's Pine Pollen is taken.
What men say they notice
The thing men bring up first is morning wood. Men who take pine pollen daily say it comes back stronger and more often. The second is drive, both in the bedroom and in the gym and at work. If you want the longer version of how men take it and what they track, read our post on pine pollen for men.
The best natural testosterone booster is one you take every day
Every study above ran on daily use for 8 to 12 weeks, so pick the form you will keep taking.
Most tongkat ali, ashwagandha and fenugreek come as capsules. Shilajit resin has to be measured out and dissolved. Pine pollen powder is gritty, clumps in water, and the grain has a tough outer wall that has to be cracked open first. A tincture gets around all of it. Mara's Pine Pollen is made from wild-harvested, cracked-cell pollen of Pinus radiata, and it is spagyric. The pollen is extracted, then the minerals left behind are returned to the liquid, so the whole plant ends up in the bottle.
Pine Pollen – Spagyric Pine Pollen Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Wild-harvested, cracked-cell Pinus radiata pollen.
Add to bagA day with it looks like this:
- One dropper under the tongue when you get up, held for 20 to 30 seconds, then swallowed.
- Or one dropper stirred into water, coffee, a protein shake or juice before training.
- A second dropper later in the day if you take two.
At 1 to 2 droppers a day a 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days. It tastes soft and lightly earthy, with a faint sweetness, so it disappears in a shake. Ingredients are simple: premium quality extract.
Check the glass on anything you buy, since a tincture sits on a bench or in a bag for weeks. Dark amber glass is a step in the right direction. Dark Miron glass is the gold standard, and it is what Mara bottles Pine Pollen in.
Pine Pollen considerations
Contains alcohol. If you're pregnant, nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.
Questions men ask
What is the best natural testosterone booster for men?
Pine pollen is the only plant on the usual list where testosterone itself was isolated from the plant (Šaden-Krehula, 1971), and two pilots in men have tracked it since. Tongkat ali, ashwagandha, fenugreek and shilajit each have trials of their own, and a daily tincture under the tongue is the easiest form to keep taking.
How long did the pine pollen testosterone studies run?
Both Wolkodoff pilots ran for eight weeks, with blood work at the start and the end. The men took 1 mL of tincture a day, five days on and two off.
How do you take a pine pollen tincture?
Hold a dropper under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into a drink. Most men take 1 to 2 droppers a day.