Table 3.

Some evidences of the beneficial action of ginger, ginger extracts and isolated compounds on testosterone of animal models.

Extract/compound	Dose	Duration	Population	Effect on Serum Testosterone	Ref.
Aqueous extract of ginger	600 mg/kg	8 days	SIDR	↑	Kamtchouing et al. (2002)
Methanolic roots extract	100 and 200 mg/kg	65 days	AIDR	↑	Shalaby and Hamowieh (2010)
Aqueous extract of roots	150 and 300 mg/kg	65 days	AIDR	↑	Shalaby and Hamowieh (2010)
Ginger	4% of the diet	2 weeks	Hypertensive male rats	↑	Akinyemi et al. (2015)
Zingerone	20 mg/kg	8 weeks	SIDR	–	Eid et al. (2017)
geraniol	200 mg/kg	8 weeks	SIDR	–	Eid et al. (2017)
6-gingerol	75 mg/kg	8 weeks	SIDR	–	Eid et al. (2017)
Fresh ginger roots	1.5 g/15 g of diet	30 days	AIDR	↑	Ghlissi et al. (2013)

↑ indicate elevation; - indicate no change; SIDR: Streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats; AIDR: Alloxan-induced diabetic rats.

Mechanistically, ginger can enhance the libido via various aspects. For example, it significantly neutralizes reactive oxygen species (ROS), diminishes systemic inflammation, increase the serum levels of LH, and decreases the levels of 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3βHSD), steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR), 17β-estradiol (N. Li et al., 2022; Raoufi et al., 2023). In addition, Ghareib et al. concluded that 6-gingerol, the active constituent of ginger, is able to activate cGMP and greatly enhance the synthesis and liberation of NO. This will ensure the vasodilation and, consequently, more blood flow to the testes (Ghareib et al., 2015).