Libido supplements

Libido comes from Latin and means wish, drive or desire. Today it almost always refers to sexual desire, but that narrowing is fairly recent.

Sigmund Freud made sexuality a subject for open discussion in the early twentieth century and in fact gave the word a much broader meaning: the energy arising from the drives that steer our behaviour. His contemporary Carl Gustav Jung stretched it further still into a general life force, separate from sexuality. In that broader reading it is about physical and mental balance and about your energy level.

Of everything in this collection, two substances are listed in the European register. Zinc contributes to the maintenance of normal testosterone levels in the blood and to normal fertility and reproduction. Selenium contributes to normal spermatogenesis.

Both claims only apply from fifteen per cent of the reference intake per daily dose. For zinc that reference intake is 10 mg, so the threshold is 1.5 mg. For selenium it is 55 µg, so 8.25 µg. Oyster extract is naturally one of the richest sources of zinc there is.

Maca (Lepidium meyenii) is a tuber crop from the Andes that grows at around four thousand metres, on the high plateau around Junín in Peru. It has been an ordinary food crop there for centuries. Shilajit is a resin that seeps from rock crevices in the Himalayas in summer and is classed among the rasayanas in Ayurveda.

You will also find oyster extract, freeze-dried organ tissue from grass-fed cattle, fish roe and two forms of L-arginine: one with delayed release and one bound to silicon. The composition varies greatly from product to product, so compare the label before you choose.

This collection contains products with a different status from an ordinary vitamin. DHEA is a steroid hormone made by the body itself in the adrenal glands, which serves as a precursor to other hormones. The organ formula with testicular tissue also contains hormone-containing glandular tissue.

Products like these call for considerably more caution than zinc or maca. Do not use them on your own initiative alongside hormone medication, and consult a doctor if in doubt. Athletes subject to anti-doping rules should check the composition beforehand.