Maca root powder for menopause: what the studies show, red maca, dose and safety

Does maca root powder actually help menopause symptoms?

It may help some symptoms a little, and the proof is small. Maca is the root of Lepidium meyenii, a relative of broccoli and cabbage that grows high in the Peruvian Andes. It is sold dried and ground into a powder, or packed into capsules.

Only a handful of randomized controlled trials, or RCTs, have tested maca in menopause. In an RCT, chance decides who gets the real product and who gets a placebo. A placebo is a look-alike with nothing active in it. Most of these trials enrolled only a few dozen women.

A 2011 systematic review in Maturitas reviewed four of these RCTs. Its authors found "limited evidence for the effectiveness of maca as a treatment for menopausal symptoms." They added that "the safety has not been proved yet."

The Menopause Society, the leading US group of menopause experts, looked at maca by name in its 2023 nonhormone position statement. It describes maca as "a traditional foodstuff from South America." It notes that four studies showed better symptom scores, but flags their quality, design and small size.

Its verdict is that "existing evidence is not strong enough to support the use of maca for VMS." VMS stands for vasomotor symptoms, meaning hot flashes and night sweats. More broadly, the statement says over-the-counter supplements and herbal therapies for hot flashes "are not recommended."

So here is the honest picture. Maca may help with low mood, anxiety and low sexual desire. It probably won't touch hot flashes, and nothing suggests it helps with weight. It also does not balance hormones, whatever the label says.

What are the real benefits of maca for menopause, symptom by symptom?

Two terms help with the trials below. In a double-blind trial, neither the women nor the researchers know who is taking maca. In a crossover trial, each woman takes maca for one stretch and placebo for another, so she acts as her own comparison.

Mood and anxiety

• Brooks, Menopause, 2008: a double-blind crossover trial in 14 postmenopausal women. They took 3.5 g of powdered maca a day for 6 weeks and placebo for 6 weeks. Anxiety and depression scores improved compared with both their starting point and placebo.
• Stojanovska, Climacteric, 2015: a double-blind crossover trial in 29 postmenopausal Chinese women in Hong Kong. They took 3.3 g a day of maca or placebo, 6 weeks each. Depression scores fell after the maca phase. The summary does not report a direct gap against placebo.

Both teams called their work a pilot or preliminary. Small numbers like these can swing on a few women. If low mood has lasted weeks, our perimenopause depression guide and perimenopause anxiety guide cover options with stronger evidence.

Libido and sexual function

• Brooks, Menopause, 2008: the same 14 women also scored better on sexual function with maca than with placebo.
• Dording, Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2015: a 12-week double-blind trial of 3.0 g of maca a day or placebo. It enrolled 45 women whose antidepressants had dulled their sex drive. On one sexual function scale, 9.5% recovered on maca and 4.8% on placebo. That is a small gap in a small trial.

The Dording trial was funded by an NIH research center and is one of the better-designed maca studies in women. Its population was not menopausal women in general, though. The authors linked maca's edge to being postmenopausal, but in that small group the gaps could still have been chance.

Low desire in midlife often has several causes at once. Our perimenopause libido guide walks through them.

Hot flashes and night sweats

• Meissner, International Journal of Biomedical Science, 2005 and 2006: a series of trials in Polish women using Maca-GO, a gelatinized maca, at 2 g a day, mostly for two to four months.
• Meissner crossover trial, 2006: 22 early-postmenopausal women completed a double-blind crossover over four months. Hot flash scores were lower on maca than on placebo.

These results come with a large caveat. The lead researcher worked with TTD International, a maca company that co-funded at least one of the trials. The independent Brooks and Hong Kong trials did not report a hot flash benefit.

This is the evidence The Menopause Society weighed before concluding it was not strong enough. Our perimenopause hot flashes guide ranks the options that are.

Sleep

No menopause trial of maca has reported sleep as a result on its own. Insomnia even appears among the side effects people have reported, according to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center's herb database.

Energy

The energy data come from outside menopause. A 2016 trial in Pharmaceuticals followed 175 Peruvian men and women aged 18 to 65. For 12 weeks, they took red maca, black maca or a placebo. At low altitude, more people reported extra energy on maca than on placebo. At high altitude, the groups did not differ.

Blood pressure

The Hong Kong trial saw lower diastolic blood pressure, the bottom number, after the maca phase. The larger Peruvian trial found no blood pressure difference between maca and placebo. Neither is a reason to use maca for blood pressure.

Is red maca better for menopause than black or yellow maca?

Not in any trial of women in menopause. Maca colors are types of the same plant, not different herbs. A 2024 review in Nutrients counts 13 to 17 colors, with yellow, black and red the most studied.

The same review found that only half of 30 published maca trials even said which color they used. The menopause trials either used a mix of colors or did not name one.

What human studies show

Only one human trial has tested red maca on its own. That was the Peruvian trial above, in mixed adults rather than menopausal women. At low altitude, red maca improved mood more than black maca by week 12. One of its authors runs a small company that makes nutraceuticals.

What rat studies show

• Bone: in rats whose ovaries were removed, red and black maca protected bone structure over four weeks. They did not enlarge the uterus, which estrogen does.
• Prostate: red maca shrank enlarged prostates in male rats, a finding often quoted on red maca labels.

The bone benefit of red maca is not shown in women. Rat results often fail to carry over to people. Red maca is a fine choice if you prefer it, but it has no proven edge for menopause.

Does maca contain estrogen or balance hormones?

No. In the two independent trials, maca did not shift the hormones that change at menopause.

• Estradiol: the main estrogen your ovaries make, and the one in most HRT.
• FSH: follicle-stimulating hormone. It is the brain's signal telling the ovaries to ripen an egg and make estrogen. As the ovaries slow down, the brain shouts louder, so FSH rises.
• LH: luteinizing hormone, FSH's partner signal from the brain.
• SHBG: sex hormone-binding globulin, a protein that carries sex hormones in the blood.

The Brooks trial found no differences in estradiol, FSH, LH or SHBG between maca and placebo. Lab tests on yeast cells found no meaningful estrogen-like or testosterone-like activity in its maca.

The Hong Kong trial found no differences in estradiol, FSH, SHBG or TSH, the thyroid signal. Its authors concluded that maca "did not exert hormonal or immune biological action" in the women studied.

The industry-linked Meissner trials reported higher estradiol and lower FSH. Their titles even used the phrase "hormone-balancing," which is likely where the label claim comes from. Independent teams have not reproduced those hormone shifts.

Maca is not a phytoestrogen like soy

Phytoestrogens are plant compounds that act like weak estrogen. Soy is the classic example. The Menopause Society notes that maca extracts act like estrogen in lab dishes, but "studies have found no in vivo estrogenic effects," meaning none in living bodies.

The Nutrients review agrees that maca is not rich in isoflavones the way soy and red clover are. For the soy side of the story, see our guide to soy for menopause.

How much maca to take, and in what form?

The trials used 2 to 3.5 grams a day for 6 to 12 weeks. These are the amounts studied, not a recommendation.

There is no Tolerable Upper Intake Level for maca. That is the official safe ceiling the NIH lists for vitamins and minerals, and none has been set for maca. The NIH has no maca fact sheet either.

There is also no long-term safety data. Most trials stopped at 12 weeks or sooner. The longest run followed only eight women, in an industry-linked trial.

Raw powder, gelatinized powder or capsules

• Raw powder: dried, ground root. It is the cheapest form and mixes into smoothies or oatmeal, with a malty, nutty taste.
• Gelatinized powder: heated under pressure to strip out starch. The Nutrients review says this makes it easier to digest. Heat may also lower goitrogens, plant compounds covered in the safety section.
• Capsules: usually 500 to 750 mg each, so reaching trial amounts can mean four to seven a day. They suit you if you dislike the taste.

No human trial has pitted gelatinized against raw maca head to head. The hot flash trials used gelatinized maca. The Brooks trial used powdered maca.

Cost is modest. At about 3 g a day, a bag of organic maca powder works out to about $5 a month. Plain maca capsules run about $10–$20 a month. A branded gelatinized menopause formula such as Femmenessence MacaPause costs about $35 a month.

Maca also turns up in menopause blends, such as Happy Mammoth's Hormone Harmony, which lists 12 ingredients. Our Happy Mammoth review covers it. With any blend, check how many grams of maca a serving holds and compare that with the trial doses above.

Is maca safe? Side effects and who should skip it

In the trials, maca was mostly uneventful. Over 12 weeks, the Peruvian trial found no serious side effects in 175 adults. In the Dording trial, three women stopped because of flu-like symptoms or vomiting, which the authors found hard to blame on maca.

Memorial Sloan Kettering's herb database lists other reported effects: changes to menstrual cycles, moodiness, cramps, stomach irritation and insomnia. These are individual reports, not trial findings.

Who should skip maca or check first

• Hormone-sensitive cancer: Memorial Sloan Kettering says to talk to your healthcare provider if you have a hormone-sensitive cancer, such as breast or uterine cancer. The Nutrients review goes further and says maca would be contraindicated with a personal history of hormone-sensitive cancer.
• Pregnancy or breastfeeding: Memorial Sloan Kettering says maca may not be safe.
• Thyroid conditions: like broccoli and cabbage, maca contains goitrogens. These compounds can interfere with thyroid hormone activity, and heating may lower them. The Hong Kong trial found no change in TSH, the thyroid signal.
• Testosterone blood tests: maca can interfere with the lab test, giving a misleading result. Mention it if your clinician orders one.

If any of these apply to you, a quick word with your clinician before you start is worth it.

Interactions

No drug interaction with maca has been shown in people. One rat study found maca boosted the effect of losartan, a blood pressure drug. Memorial Sloan Kettering says its relevance for people has yet to be determined.

Quality and what the label can't promise

The FDA "does NOT have the authority to approve dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness" before they are sold. Makers are responsible for their own labels, and quality varies.

• Know what a product seal means: USP Verified or NSF Certified means an outside lab checked that the bottle holds what the label says. We found no maca product with either seal in October 2026.
• Don't confuse it with facility claims: "made in an NSF-registered facility" or "gluten-free certified" is not the same as a product seal.
• Mind heavy metals: the Nutrients review notes lead and cadmium above permitted limits in soil and roots from some growing areas. Brands that publish lab results per batch are easier to trust.
• Skip the big promises: a label that claims to balance hormones or replace HRT is marketing, not science.

How long does maca take to work, and how will you know?

The trials ran 6 to 12 weeks. If maca is going to help you, that window is when you would expect to notice.

A simple symptom diary turns a vague feeling into something you can judge. Start it two weeks before your first dose, so you have a baseline to compare against.

• Rate each week from 0 to 10: mood, anxiety, sexual desire, energy and sleep.
• Count hot flashes on two set days: for example, every Tuesday and Saturday.
• Note anything new: stomach upset, a change in your cycle, or trouble sleeping.
• Review at 12 weeks: if your scores look the same as your baseline, maca is not doing much for you.

A diary also helps you notice a placebo effect. Mood often lifts a little once you feel you're doing something. That is real relief, but it shouldn't keep you paying for a product indefinitely.

How does maca compare with other natural options and with treatments that work better?

Among natural options, maca sits in the same small-evidence group as most herbs. Ashwagandha has more trials on stress, which our ashwagandha for perimenopause guide covers. Soy is a true phytoestrogen with more hot flash trials, and The Menopause Society still does not recommend it. Our perimenopause supplements guide compares the rest.

For hot flashes, The Menopause Society says hormone therapy "remains the most effective treatment." Its 2023 statement also recommends these nonhormone options:

• Hormone therapy: the most effective option for hot flashes and night sweats.
• Fezolinetant: sold as Veozah, a non-hormonal pill that blocks a brain signal behind hot flashes. It carries a boxed warning about rare liver injury.
• Elinzanetant: sold as Lynkuet, a similar pill approved in October 2025, after the statement came out.
• SSRIs and SNRIs: antidepressants at low doses. Low-dose paroxetine is FDA-approved for hot flashes.
• Gabapentin: a nerve medicine often used for night sweats.
• Oxybutynin: a bladder medicine that also reduces sweating.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy and clinical hypnosis: mind-body approaches backed by the strongest grade of evidence.
• Weight loss and stellate ganglion block: also on the recommended list, with lower-level evidence. The block is an injection near a nerve cluster in the neck.

Maca can still sit alongside any of these if it helps your mood or desire. It just isn't the tool for hot flashes. Our overview of menopause treatment options explains how each works.