Do Erectile Dysfunction Supplements Actually Work? What a Real Academic Study Found
The same research team that analyzed testosterone boosters (covered in our companion article) ran an identical, rigorous analysis on erectile dysfunction supplements — the exact category VigRX Plus, Semenax, ExtenZe, Erectin, and Volume Pills all compete in. The findings are worth reading before you buy any of them.
The Study
The six products analyzed averaged 2,390 reviews each (ranging from about 1,360 to 3,650) and an average rating of 4.08 out of 5. All six were from North American manufacturers — this wasn’t a study of obscure, fringe products, but of the category’s actual best-sellers at the time.
What They Found
The study’s own conclusion is direct: human studies evaluating the efficacy of ED supplement ingredients are limited and have yielded no definitive findings of an effect on erectile dysfunction. The researchers explicitly flagged the prevalence of what they call “disingenuous reviews” — reviews that don’t reflect genuine, verified product use.
A related analysis by the same research group, examining ingredients across both testosterone and erectile dysfunction supplements together, identified 21 distinct ED-related ingredients and searched for randomized controlled trials behind each one.
Nearly half of the common ingredients in this category — things you’ll see listed confidently on a product label — have never been tested in a single published trial, for any purpose, let alone erectile function specifically.
The Ingredient Gap
Where research does exist, it’s often thinner than marketing implies. A separate, independent meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on herbal ED supplements found the strongest, most consistent evidence for just two ingredients: red Panax ginseng and, to a lesser extent, saffron — we cover ginseng’s evidence in more depth in our own Panax Ginseng guide. That same broader review noted that a study of ED supplements sold in Italy found 80% contained ingredients below the minimum dose shown to have any effect, and only 8% of formulations scored as having a scientifically plausible chance of working at all.
What This Means for You
None of this means every product in this category is worthless — it means the honest starting assumption should be skepticism, not trust, and that a high star rating or review count on its own tells you very little. Two things are worth checking before buying any ED supplement: whether it discloses actual ingredient doses (rather than a proprietary blend), and whether those doses match the amounts used in real human research — exactly the checks we run in each of our individual product reviews.
FAQ
Do ED supplements work as well as prescription medication?
No. Even the ingredients with the best natural evidence (like red ginseng) show smaller effects than PDE5 inhibitors like sildenafil or tadalafil, and no dietary supplement is FDA-approved to treat erectile dysfunction.
Which six products did the study analyze?
The publicly available summary doesn’t name them, and the analysis reflects Amazon’s ED supplement category as it existed in September 2018. We’re presenting the general pattern the study documents, not claims about any specific current product.
Can I trust the reviews on ED supplement pages?
Treat them with real caution. This research group found a similar review-reliability problem in the parallel testosterone booster study — see our companion article for that specific data.
See how our reviews account for this
Read Our VigRX Plus ReviewLast reviewed: September 2026 · Read our full rating methodology · Source: Balasubramanian et al., 2019, Journal of Sexual Medicine (PMID 31036522).
