Summary
Chlorophytum borivilianum (safed musli) is a traditionally rare Indian herb used in Ayurveda that was normally procured in jungles but has since begun to be cultivated; it has use as an adaptogenic compound and aphrodisiac and is sometimes referred to as "White Gold" due to the coloration (or lack thereof) of its roots, which are seen as the main active component. Safed musli has a high saponin and polysaccharide content, and the water extract appears to be the most active extraction (with some efficacy coming from alcoholic or methanolic preparations).
The research on safed musli mostly comes from animal studies, and human studies are lacking; 2 human studies were both confounded with the inclusion of equal parts Mucuna pruriens and funding from a company that produced the compound used. These results need to be viewed with skepticism.
In rats, safed musli appears to be quite an effective aphrodisiac and proerectile agent that (at least according to one study) was slightly less effective than Viagra; Safed musli also appears to be called herbal viagra by some, which is similar to the name given to Cnidium monnieri (a proerectile agent from Traditional Chinese Medicine). Like many other aphrodisiac herbs, spermatogenesis and testicular size can be increased, but no sexual effect of safed musli has been tested in humans, although comparative studies against Asparagus racemosus and Curculigo Orchioides suggest that safed musli is the most potent of these 3 herbs.
Dosage Information
No human studies have been conducted to properly assess how much safed musli to use for the effects listed above.
Rat studies have used a range of 100 to 200 mg of safed musli per kilogram of body weight (mg/kg), which converts to a preliminary dose of 16 to 32 mg/kg in humans (a dose of 1.1 to 2.2 grams for a 150 lb human).
