Chasteberry Extract 400mg

Description

Chasteberry extract 400mg of dried Vitex agnus-castus fruit, 90 servings, about 23 cents each. The plant is a Mediterranean shrub whose peppercorn sized fruit has been in continuous pharmacy use in Europe for longer than most of the modern supplement industry has existed. A chasteberry extract 400mg capsule is a dried extract, and the strength of the extract is the detail that decides whether a figure means anything.

On the panel

Why 400mg of one extract is not 20mg of another

This is the trap in the whole chasteberry category. The best studied preparation, a concentrated proprietary extract used across the European trials, was given at around 20 mg a day. Dried extracts at lower concentrations have been used at 40 mg and upward. A chasteberry extract 400mg capsule of a milder dried extract can sit in the same territory as a 20 mg capsule of a concentrated one, and the only way to tell is the extract ratio.

So the ratio is on our panel beside the weight. Extract ratio, plant part and marker compound are the three figures that make any botanical comparable, as set out on the herbals page, and the milligram number alone is close to meaningless without them.

What the published trials measured

Controlled studies of this plant have mostly run three menstrual cycles and measured premenstrual symptom rating scales, breast tenderness scores and clinician assessments, with the concentrated extract at about 20 mg daily and dried extracts at higher weights. That is a description of the doses administered and the instruments read in the literature. Nothing in it is a claim about this bottle, which is a food under United States law.

Why a chasteberry extract 400mg bottle runs three months

Ninety servings at one a day is three months, and that length is not an accident of packaging. The controlled trials on this plant ran across three menstrual cycles, because that is the timescale their outcome measures were designed around. A fortnight’s supply would not match any published protocol, and a bottle that runs out after three weeks tells you something about who packed it.

Our note on what starting low actually means covers the general version of this: the useful question is not how strong a capsule is but how long the research ran and whether the bottle covers it.

Fruit, not leaf, and the pepper comparison

The part used is the dried fruit, which looks and tastes close enough to black pepper that the plant was called monk’s pepper and used as a seasoning. Leaf and twig material is a different composition and does not belong in a chasteberry extract 400mg capsule. Plant part is printed on the panel beside the species, since a milled powder gives no visual clue which part of the shrub it came from.

The interaction worth raising first

The plant in a chasteberry extract 400mg capsule is understood in the pharmacological literature to act on dopamine receptors, which is why it has documented interactions with dopamine agonists and antagonists and why anyone on hormonal medication, including contraceptives, should raise it with a pharmacist before starting rather than afterwards. That sentence is on this page because it is more useful than anything we could write about the plant’s history.

Identity, and why it matters here

Dried fruit is milled for a chasteberry extract 400mg capsule, and milled material is where substitution happens, so species identity is confirmed on every lot rather than assumed from a supplier document. The NCCIH herbs at a glance series gives a free government summary of what has been studied for this plant and many others.

Testing

An independent laboratory confirms identity and extract specification and screens heavy metals, pesticides, aflatoxins and microbials on every lot of chasteberry extract 400mg. Failing lots are withdrawn and their certificates stay published rather than quietly deleted. The rest of this shelf is on the women’s page, and your lot certificate is linked above.