Maca and medications.
Maca is in the Distil supplement database, evidence Grade B. The page below lists every medication we have explicitly assessed it against.
Maca is a root vegetable from the Peruvian Andes, taken at 1,500 to 3,000mg a day. The gelatinised form is preferred because it absorbs better and has less of the goitrogenic glucosinolate content found in raw maca. Its evidence is Grade B for libido and menopausal symptoms, and notably it shows benefit in both men and women. Trials by Gonzales, Brooks and Dording suggest it may improve libido, ease menopausal symptoms like hot flushes and mood, and help reverse SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction. We no longer recommend it for fertility: when the five trials of maca on semen quality were pooled, the result was null for sperm concentration, and the reviewers called the effects unclear, so the sperm-count claim often made for maca does not hold up. The honest limit is that maca acts on libido pathways rather than directly on erectile function, so for erectile dysfunction specifically the stronger evidence points to Panax ginseng instead. No significant drug interactions are documented at standard doses. The one caution is thyroid: anyone with a thyroid condition should use the gelatinised form only and monitor, because raw maca glucosinolates can be goitrogenic at high intake.
We have not yet completed an explicit assessment of medications for Maca in the Distil interactions database. We surface this distinction deliberately: the Distil checker tells you when we have explicitly assessed a pair and when we have not, because both are useful information. If you take Maca alongside a medication, the checker below will surface anything already in our database, and the missing-item form at the bottom of the page routes uncatalogued pairs into our next curation pass.
What this list does not say. Pairs not flagged here are not implicitly safe. They are either not yet in our database, or fall outside our inclusion scope. Use the checker below to surface any medication, and submit a missing item if you take something we have not catalogued.
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How the checker decides
Every result has a source
Each pair we have assessed is cited to a published study (PMID) or the British National Formulary, so you can read the source yourself.
Four kinds of answer
Severe, caution, no known interaction, and not yet assessed. A pair we have not assessed is never shown as clear.
- Severe
- Caution
- No known interaction
- Not yet assessed
Nothing in our data is not a clearance
When nothing in our data records a problem with a pair, the result says no known interaction at typical doses, which is not a clearance: your pharmacist or GP can check the pair against your full medical history.
A full supplement review, built around you, not a generic stack.
The free checker answers one interaction question at a time. A Distil report reviews the bigger picture: your goals, diet, medications, current supplements and any blood results you provide, then shows what appears worth keeping, changing, adding or leaving out.
- what your diet already covers, so you are not adding a capsule for something food is already handling
- which evidence-graded compounds are worth considering for your goals, and which were considered but left out
- what to keep, change or stop from what you already take, plus the order to introduce anything new
- how your medications and complete supplement stack fit together, with daily timing and a clear point for reassessment
The interaction check is one section of the full report. You also get the reasoning behind each recommendation and the evidence references used.
£49 until 30 June 2027 · £79 from 1 July 2027.
Something missing?
If a supplement or medication you take isn't in our autocomplete, tell us. What people flag joins the queue of what we add next.