Kino Mojo, sold by Greg o’Gallagher, is a testosterone booster “designed to increase your testosterone levels to where they should be” according to the sales page.
It’s a supplement containing 5 all-natural ingredients to help increase total and free testosterone as well as dopamine with the intent to make you feel awesome!
Who doesn’t want high testosterone right?
His sales page goes on to say,
“Imagine living with more ambition, a higher sex drive, less fat, more muscle and a higher quality of life.”
But is this supplement effective enough to get you there? Let’s analyze each ingredient individually.
Ingredient analysis
Magnesium on testosterone
Low levels of magnesium can lead to low testosterone.
Supplemental magnesium is definitely able to increase testosterone, which is shown by multiple research papers (R, R).
Magnesium supplementation is able to increase testosterone in sedentary, beginner, and advanced athletes and it potentiates the testosterone boost induced by exercise (R). The dose used in this study was 10mg/kg of magnesium sulfate (Epsom salt), which has roughly 1mg of elemental magnesium (10%) per 10mg. That would be 1g of magnesium for a 100kg individual.
Magnesium can increase testosterone in 6 main ways, namely:
- Lowering gut inflammation and preventing leaky gut
- Improving energy production
- Improving insulin sensitivity
- Reducing cortisol
- Increasing thyroid hormone production
- Regulating the metabolism of vitamin D
Zinc on testosterone
Zinc is one of the most important minerals used for testosterone optimization. This is because it can have a powerful effect on boosting testosterone. However, it will only increase testosterone if you’re deficient in zinc.
Low zinc in the body leads to:
- Low testosterone
- High estrogen
- Very low testosterone-to-estrogen ratio
- Low DHT
- High 3alpha-diol (weak DHT metabolite) and
- An awful DHT to 3 alpha-diol ratio.
A low meat (low zinc) diet can tank your testosterone.
An interesting study was done where they put 22 men on a zinc-deficient diet for 24 weeks to see what would happen to their testosterone (R).
Their diet before the experimental diet was roughly 12.5mg, which is just above the recommended daily allowance (RDA). The zinc content of the experimental zinc-deficient diet was 4.2-5.6mg. 2-3 times less of what they usually consumed.
The low-zinc foods were from a semipurified diet based on texturized soy products with added vitamins and minerals, except zinc. I can’t believe anyone ate that for 20 weeks!
As a result, their testosterone dropped from 1150ng/dl to 305nd/dl after 20 weeks! That’s roughly an x4 drop.
As a side note, it’s quite remarkable that their baseline testosterone was 1150ng/dl since they worked in a hospital, which is demanding, can be stressful and has a severe lack of sunlight.
Supplementing zinc can double your testosterone
The same researchers did another study where that supplemented men between the ages of 50 and 80 with 30mg zinc gluconate daily for 6 months (R).
Before the supplemental protocol, their average daily dietary zinc intake was a measly 69% of the RDA. Since the RDA for zinc is 11mg, that would mean they were consuming only 7.6mg of zinc daily.
Over the 6 months, their testosterone doubled from 240ng/dl to 460ng/dl, putting them in the normal range (R).
Other hormonal benefits of zinc include:
- Increasing the androgen receptors. Zn-finger proteins are involved in the genetic expression of various growth factors and steroid receptors (R).
- Lowering estrogen receptors. Zinc-deficient rats have significantly increased estrogen sensitivity due to more estrogen receptors (R).
- Lowering excess aromatase. Zinc-deficient rats have significantly more estrogen and lower testosterone (R)
- Being a cofactor for the enzyme, 17 β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17β-HSD), which converts androstenedione to testosterone (R).
- Increasing DHT. Low zinc leads to increased DHT breakdown into 3α-diol. Zinc supplementation (120mg twice daily) significantly increased DHT (19%), and also slightly increased testosterone (8%) in eugonadal men (490 to 750ng/dl), showing upregulation of 5 alpha-reductase even at a very high dose of zinc (R).
- Helping with muscle growth.
Here I talk about how zinc influences the androgen receptors and DHT levels
Tongkat Ali on testosterone
Studies have shown that Tongkat Ali can increase testosterone levels in humans (men) in a dose-dependent manner.
Meaning, 200mg of Tongkat Ali can increase testosterone by about 25-50ng/dl, whereas 600mg daily can increase testosterone by 120ng/dl on average.
The cool thing about Tongkat Ali is that it can increase testosterone in young, healthy males, with already high testosterone.
According to this clinical trial, 600 mg of Tongkat Ali extract (1.45% eurycomanone; 8.5mg total) increased young (average age 24 years) males’ total testosterone from 802 to 924ng/dl in just 14 days.
In summary, use at least 8mg+ eurycomanone per day for a good increase in testosterone.
I do think that a lot of people are underdosing Tongkat Ali. This animal study found that Tongkat Ali increased total and free testosterone in a dose-dependent manner (R).
50mg/kg for a rat is 8.11mg/kg. That would be 729.73mg for a 90kg man.
800mg/kg in rats is 129.73mg/kg in humans. That would be 11675.68mg for a 90kg man.
Most people are taking 200-400mg, which can give you a bump of 25-50ng/dl in testosterone. If you really want to see change, then take 1g+.
Forskolin on testosterone
Forskolin is a natural compound (diterpene) found in the root of the Coleus Forskohlii plant, which is part of the mint family.
The proposed mechanism for how Forskolin can increase testosterone is by increasing cAMP (cyclic adenosine monophosphate). LH (luteinizing hormone released from the pituitary) stimulates testosterone production by increasing cAMP. So the hope is that Forskolin will do the same since it works through the same mechanism.
Forskolin has been shown to:
- Enhances Leydig cell sensitivity to LH (R).
- Increase total testosterone from 506 to 575ng/dl after 12 weeks (69ng/dl increase) (R) (the dose used was 500mg of 10% forskolli (50mg forskolin)).
- Increase free testosterone by 16% (from 15.9 to 16.36pg/ml) after 12 weeks (R) (the dose used was 500mg of 10% forskolli (50mg forskolin)).
- Promote vasodilatory effect, thus it can help with vascularity (R).
- Have the potential to upregulate androgen receptors (R), but potentially weaken androgen receptors (R).
- Increase tyrosine hydroxylase (the rate-limited enzyme in dopamine synthesis) (R).
- Increase dopamine D2 receptor expression (R).
- Act as a dopamine D1 agonist (R).
In summary, forskolin may have androgenic and dopaminergic effects.
Boron on total and free testosterone
Most testosterone boosters contain boron to boost free testosterone since it can help to lower SHBG.
Studies have shown that the recommended dosage is 10-11mg daily, whereas 3mg is ineffective.
In this supplement, they use 5mg. 5mg is closer to 3mg than 10mg, which makes it underdosed.
Plus, DIM increases SHBG, so the SHBG-lowering effect of boron is likely canceled out with DIM.
Don’t use boron on its own || Supercharge boron for higher DHT
Me when I analyze supplement labels.
Summary
Although the ingredients in Mojo should help to increase total and free testosterone, the herbs therein are definitely under-dosed and the active ingredient in both Tongkat Ali and Forskohlii isn’t specified; which means there is no definite way of knowing how much they actually contain and of what quality and origin they are of.
The ideal dosing would be:
- 100-200mg elemental magnesium (1-2g magnesium glycinate)
- 15-20mg zinc
- 600mg+ Tongkat Ali with at least 10mg of eurycomanone
- 500mg Forskohlii root extract (50mg Forskolin)
- 10mg Boron
The dosing Mojo contains:
- 200mg elemental magnesium (2g magnesium glycinate)
- 15mg zinc
- 200mg Tonkgat Ali (active ingredient not specified)
- 250mg forskohlii root extract (active ingredient not specified)
- 6mg Boron
On the sales page, Greg says,
“If you were to shop all ingredients separately you would be paying over $100 per month. But with the Kino Mojo formula you can get it for just $44.95 per bottle and save even more on our monthly subscription program.”
So I was curious and did the product searching and the math to lay it out…
If you were to get the top quality ingredients, the pricing (per serving) would be as follows:
- Magnesium: 200mg elemental magnesium = $0.15
- Zinc (sucrusomal zinc): 20mg = $0.53
- Tongkat Ali: 100mg Tongkat Ali, 10mg eurycomanone = $0.73 per serving
- Forskolin: 250mg Forskohlli, 50mg forskolin = $0.30 per serving
- Boron: 10mg boron = $0.06 per serving
This brings us to a total of $1.77 per serving, for the right dose with the right extract.
Mojo is $1.67 per serving or $1.33 if you subscribe. Not a big difference. So the initial price of all the ingredients paid for separately might be more, but the price per serving isn’t much of a difference. I honestly have to say that I’d rather pay a little more and get vastly superior ingredients (at the right dose of the active ingredients) and as a consequence, better results.
So I personally wouldn’t buy this supplement mainly because it’s underdosed and because the active ingredients aren’t specified. I’ve used many supplements that didn’t indicate the active ingredients and felt zero effect despite taking 10x of the recommended dose (all at once). The active ingredient matters and when the product is of good quality, they always specify.