ExtenZe Reviews: A non-prescription pill for treating ED?

Studies show that erectile problems can affect men of any adult age.1 Difficulty getting or maintaining an erection can result from physiological conditions, mental health problems, and/or certain medications. Because this condition affects so many men, there are numerous supplements and medications offered as treatments, but these might not address the root causes.

One of these products, ExtenZe, is readily available and enjoys a fairly high degree of name recognition. But does it work, and is it safe? We set out to thoroughly test and evaluate ExtenZe as a treatment for men experiencing these erectile difficulties so that you can know what to expect.

The “Cons” above stand out to us as significant warning signs. ExtenZe obscures the majority of what is already a small overall dose of ingredients behind a proprietary blend. That means we don’t know how much of each listed ingredient is present, and their total weight implies there isn’t enough of any one for their combination to provide meaningful results for most men. It’s certainly possible that ExtenZe could work for some men, but given the company’s track record with safety and the presence of superior products on the market, we do not recommend it at this time. Dr. Thomas Kutner, a member of our Medical Review Board, advises our readers to steer clear of ExtenZe, cautioning that the lack of transparency about ingredients makes it impossible to clearly assess safety or effectiveness. "While many supplements go without direct approval of the FDA, anytime the FDA specifically rejects a product for use by the American people, that is a significant statement that should be taken seriously," he warns.

Instead, we recommend you check out our “Alternatives” section lower in this review for better options, depending on your goals — or visit our guide to male enhancement supplements, which explores products that are more transparent about what they contain.

Over the past two decades, Innerbody Research has helped tens of millions of readers make informed decisions about staying healthy and living healthier lifestyles. In that time, we’ve dedicated significant resources to studying the physiology and causes of male sexual dysfunction, as well as the potential treatments to address it.

In the case of ExtenZe, we pored over a few hundred research papers looking at ExtenZe’s ingredients as they relate to sexual and general health, comparing those with our database of research related to male sexual function. We also ordered ExtenZe for ourselves so that we could experience the company’s customer service and shipping logistics.

Additionally, like all health-related content on this website, this review of ExtenZe was thoroughly vetted by one or more members of our Medical Review Board for accuracy. We’ll continue to monitor ExtenZe and the greater men’s health landscape to keep this review up-to-date.

Evaluating ExtenZe required us to consider the same set of criteria we apply to most male enhancement pills. And given the breadth of men’s sexual health products we’ve covered, we can confidently establish our rankings within the world of male enhancement pills and similar supplements.

We considered effectiveness and safety to be the most important criteria for ExtenZe. Cost is also a hefty criterion in our weighting, though the range of costs among male enhancement products is relatively small, running from around $30 for a one-month supply up to about $80, with opportunities for bulk or subscription savings, depending on the company.

Finally, we considered convenience, a lesser factor in our overall rating but something we couldn’t ignore, as it could tip the scales for you between one product and another when two or more are very similar.

Let’s take a closer look at each criterion to see how ExtenZe performed.

Effectiveness

One frustrating aspect of ExtenZe that makes judging its efficacy rather difficult, if not impossible: the company hides almost all of its doses within proprietary blends. To be clear, the majority of men’s sexual health supplements list most, if not all, of their ingredients along with specific dose information. ExtenZe is one of the few that tells us almost nothing about how much of each ingredient is present in its formula. We can discern which ingredients are more prevalent when we consider that — as is the case with food products — ingredients on the label appear in order of prominence. But that only tells us so much.

The label only provides us with measurements for its niacin and folate content at 23mg and 500mcg, respectively. That niacin dose is far lower than what we’ve seen work for men with ED in clinical studies,2 but there are a few examples of 400mcg and 500mcg folate doses offering some benefit to ED sufferers who are already deficient in folate.3

To get a sense of ExtenZe’s effectiveness beyond just these two components, we compared a litany of research into its other ingredients, finding contradictory results among some studies and general support for a few ingredients among others. Icariin, for example, the primary derivative from horny goat weed, has a pretty good track record when it comes to improving erectile performance in small-scale studies generally conducted on small mammals.4 More research is needed before we can draw firm conclusions about icariin, but evidence based on reports from users points in a positive direction. Unfortunately, horny goat weed (listed as Epimedium longum) is toward the bottom of ExtenZe’s ingredient list, so it’s doubtful there’s enough in there to make a difference.

Safety

Evaluating ExtenZe’s safety is even more difficult than its efficacy. We’ve already described how the company hides the specifics of its formula behind a proprietary blend. That makes it extremely difficult to compare potential doses in ExtenZe to the results and adverse effect reporting in studies looking at its individual ingredients.

That isn’t quite enough to declare the product unsafe, either. And with the proprietary blend totaling just 358mg, it’s hard to imagine that there’s enough of any one ingredient for it to pose a serious risk on its own. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough research on how these ingredients might act together, further blurring the safety picture.

But even if ExtenZe could provide us with a comprehensive breakdown of its ingredients, including doses for each one, we would still have significant safety concerns. That’s because the formula appears to be in a constant state of flux, with new ingredients coming in and old ones going out, at least according to the labels. This suggests to us that the company is not transparent with typical regulatory agencies or with potential customers.

We reached out to ExtenZe’s parent company for clarification, and a representative provided us with a link to an image of the ExtenZe box we could compare to what we’d seen elsewhere. And the ingredients on that box — provided to us by the company — were different from the ones described on the ExtenZe website.

Over the years, these ingredient issues have landed ExtenZe in hot water, leading to class action lawsuits and penalties for false advertising. Ultimately, all this makes it hard to take the company’s word that what’s printed on the box is actually what’s in the tablets you take.

Dr. Kutner, a physician on our Medical Review Board, told us, “In reviewing this product and the FDA’s warning regarding it, I would not advise this supplement be used by any individual for any indication.”

Cost

Cost is the one area in which ExtenZe outperforms almost all of its competition. Like most of the male enhancement supplements in its class, ExtenZe provides you with opportunities to save by buying in bulk. There are no subscription programs for ExtenZe or the majority of its competitors. At the one-month supply level, ExtenZe has one of the best prices among its peers. And that advantage persists at the two-, three, and six-month levels compared to the lion’s share of other brands.

It’s worth noting that ExtenZe doesn’t offer a 12-month bulk purchasing level, which is where you can get a lot of other male enhancement products for a price that works out to less per month than ExtenZe at the six-month level. Here’s a handy chart that should help make sense of the prices available at the highest bulk levels from ExtenZe and its top competitors:

As you can see, consumers interested in trying a single month of a male enhancement pill would spend the least up front by going with ExtenZe, though they’d get the best deal buying the two-pack of male extra for $59.99. Male Extra doesn’t offer a one-month supply, however, so if you have a limited budget to try a pill, ExtenZe would still be the best route.

Convenience

When we consider the convenience a company like ExtenZe has to offer, we look at things like customer service, dosage regimen, shipping logistics, and even pill size. ExtenZe lands at or around the middle of the road in just about every convenience measure.

The company’s website consists of the same basic setup you’ll see from most male enhancement pills. It’s easy enough to find basic information about ingredients and policies, but it’s clear that every section of the site exists to drive you toward a purchase. That purchasing process is pretty seamless, with a fast and simple checkout process and quick, free shipping.

Unfortunately, you have to endure that process every time you run low on your ExtenZe supply, as the company does not offer subscriptions. That’s also par for the course among its peers, but we’d still love to see one of these companies break from the pack and offer automatic shipping. ExtenZe’s capsule size also falls within norms, but the product gets a little bump for requiring just one capsule per dose. Other companies demand much more, like Semenax’s four-capsule regimen, which can be a lot to swallow.

ExtenZe is one of the better-known male enhancement supplements on the market, thanks in part to a memorable commercial campaign from the early 2000s. The supplement itself combines vitamins, minerals, botanicals, amino acids, and hormones in an effort to improve erectile performance. Some research has suggested the effectiveness of many of these ingredients, but most of those studies utilize doses larger than the entirety of a single ExtenZe dose with all of its ingredients.

The idea behind ExtenZe and most other male enhancement supplements is that the combination of ingredients will make up for doses of individual ingredients that are lower than what’s been used in the few studies examining them. The problem with this approach is that there’s too little research into the combination of ingredients used in common male enhancement pills. That doesn’t mean ExtenZe won’t work, but it does mean the odds are against it. And there is no way to say it is safe for human consumption without a detailed outline of the ingredients.

There are some things that set ExtenZe apart from its competitors, one of which is the use of hormones. That might work toward its efficacy, but there’s a downside. Many professional athletes are actually not allowed to use ExtenZe because one of the ingredients — DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) — is considered a performance-enhancing substance by several organizations, including the International Olympic Committee.5 This contributes to additional safety concerns.

Here’s a quick look at the ingredients. We’ll get into these in greater detail below:

• Zinc
• Folic acid
• Tribulus terrestris
• DHEA (98%)
• Yohimbe extract
• Pregnenolone
• Maca
• L-Arginine hydrochloride
• Velvet bean extract
• Niacin
• Cnidium extract
• Barrenwort extract
• Muira Puama extract
• Astragalus extract
• Piper longum

Who can benefit from ExtenZe, and who likely won’t?

Given everything we know about the ingredients ExtenZe uses, it’s obvious who the company thinks can benefit from its product: any male seeking to improve his erectile performance. If you go by how the company advertises itself, you might even believe it could cure ED or make your penis bigger.

Unfortunately, these are not even remote possibilities. The reality is that we don’t recommend this product as something beneficial to potential customers at this time. For any men who are just deficient enough in zinc and vitamin B9 that a small amount of supplementation might help reduce incidences of minor erectile dysfunction, it’s a much better idea just to pursue those specific supplements (saving money and ending up with safer products). The likelihood of improvements coming from ingredients in the proprietary blends seems very low, given the doses that could fit into ExtenZe’s 358mg of total proprietary formula. For the rest of the men who would be interested in this, it’s impossible to say for certain whether ExtenZe could help you at all, but based on clinical studies, the likelihood of that seems too low for us to recommend it. And with no way to assess the safety of it, we can’t recommend it.

Most men suffering from clinically diagnosable erectile dysfunction would not benefit from ExtenZe. Nor would men whose libidos have suffered due to age, weight gain, depression, or anxiety. Men who are already supplementing their diets with multivitamins are also poor candidates for ExtenZe, as the few ingredients with high enough verifiable doses in them appear in most multivitamins in greater quantities for less money.

Whether over-the-counter (like ExtenZe) or prescription-strength medication (like sildenafil), most male sexual performance pills aim to increase blood flow to the penis, often by boosting your nitric oxide (NO) levels. This is because NO is fundamental to the signals your body sends that it’s time to increase blood flow into the chambers of the penis, leading to an erection.

There’s no scientific evidence that ExtenZe would make a penis larger than it was before. However, the pill contains ingredients that promote higher nitric oxide levels, improve blood flow, and increase the availability of free testosterone. Addressing hormonal deficiencies can strengthen libido and sexual stamina (not to mention overall energy) while improving blood flow to the penis facilitates a stronger erection.

Will ExtenZe make your penis bigger?

A lot of men believe that ExtenZe can make your penis larger. This is not the case. ExtenZe won’t make a penis larger except in the sense that improved blood flow to the penis can help you achieve a healthier erection that might look marginally bigger than it would otherwise. But after that erection fades, your penis will still be the same size it always was. For penis enlargement, you should consider other products — and we have a guide that provides much more information.

Many of the ingredients in ExtenZe have been studied in clinical trials, while some have only anecdotal evidence to support their use. More often than not, trial results are mixed, with some studies purporting efficacy and others refuting it. The best of them often end with a statement about inconclusiveness and the need for more research.

Given that the full dose of ExtenZe’s proprietary blend is just 358mg, there likely isn’t enough of any one ingredient for us to point to a study and see comparable effective doses that would give us confidence in ExtenZe’s potential. There isn’t clinical evidence at this time to support the notion that some combination of low doses of these ingredients would achieve positive effect.

Here’s a look at some of the key ingredients in ExtenZe:

To say whether or not a nutritional supplement is safe, we typically like to compare its ingredient doses to doses of those same ingredients used in studies that report on adverse effects. The problem with ExtenZe is that it’s impossible to know what its ingredient doses are for the majority of its formula due to the company's utilization of proprietary blends. We can see some doses, like the 500mcg of folate, but the more important doses are related to the less studied herbal ingredients and hormones ExtenZe employs.

As a result of this, we can’t say that ExtenZe is safe for you to take. In fact, based on what we know about a few of its ingredients, there are some known side effects and potential contraindications at play. Those include ingredients like epimedium, which can act as a vasodilator and complicate the use of prescription drugs like warfarin.

It’s also worth noting that DHEA, a central ingredient in ExtenZe, is banned by several competitive organizations as a performance-enhancing drug. And it rubs us the wrong way that ExtenZe chooses to advertise this as though it’s a benefit and not a problem.

More than once, the FDA has released statements advising consumers to avoid ExtenZe due to its unreliable formulation. Samples taken by the FDA have found various pharmacologically active ingredients in ExtenZe that are not listed on the box, including, in some cases, sildenafil, the generic form of Viagra. That ingredient actually is highly effective, of course. But you need a prescription for Viagra because your doctor has to make sure your heart is healthy enough to withstand its use. Without that medical oversight, taking sildenafil could be fatal.

ExtenZe has lost class action lawsuits over false advertising and spent large sums of money in fees and fines related to issues with its formula and its marketing. And even the company’s own box states that the product is not suitable for anyone under the age of 40.

All of this paints a picture of a product that is likely unsafe for many potential users. We cannot suggest you try this supplement.

ExtenZe is available in one-, two-, three-, and six-month supplies, with the cost per month dropping as you buy larger and larger quantities. Below are the costs of ExtenZe packages in USD, reflecting the automatic discounts you enjoy when you buy in larger quantities.

• 1-month supply — $50
• 2-month supply — $90
• 3-month supply — $125
• 6-month supply — $250

These prices are on the low side for male enhancement products, with most competitors starting their pricing around $60. That might be a good thing if budget is your primary concern, but we’d caution you to consider what you’re paying for. The total dose of all of ExtenZe’s combined ingredients is under 400mg. Most other male enhancement products have more than 400mg of single ingredients that they include in their formula, indicating that ExtenZe is not as potent a product.

You can also get a better deal on a more recommendable product, Male Extra, which charges $59.99 for a two-pack and offers a 100-day money-back guarantee.

Shipping in the U.S. is free for all order sizes.

67-day money-back guarantee

ExtenZe is owned by Leading Edge Health, a company that produces a handful of male enhancement products. Like most of Leading Edge Health’s product lineup, ExtenZe is guaranteed for a period of 67 days.

The idea behind offering 67 days is that it gives you two months to see if a product gives you any results and then another week to set up the return if you’re dissatisfied. This is admirable, but many supplement ingredients take up to 12 weeks to start producing results in the average person’s body, so 67 days might not be enough time. Other male enhancement pills like Performer 8 and Testo Prime offer lifetime guarantees.

Hopefully, some of the necessary skepticism we’ve conveyed regarding ExtenZe won’t prevent you from seeking meaningful treatment for whatever brought you to this page in the first place. Depending on the reason you sought information about ExtenZe, there’s likely a solution out there for you that we’ve already covered in some length.

We’ll link to appropriate guides that can give you a lot more information, but here’s a quick look at some alternatives to ExtenZe that can help improve your sexual function and may even help increase your penis size.

Other male enhancement pills

Just because ExtenZe might not be the answer you’re looking for, that doesn’t mean all male enhancement pills are devoid of potential. Many include ingredients with a fair amount of scientific research behind them, and they do so in doses that are clinically significant (and listed on the bottle). Our favorite male enhancement pills include generous doses of ingredients like ashwagandha, zinc, and L-arginine.15 We have a complete guide to male enhancement pills you can consult for more information.

Prescription ED medication

Many men might be wary of using prescription medications to address erectile issues, but if you’re turning to supplements to fill the gap, you might be disappointed. You also might be surprised to realize that the most commonly prescribed ED medications — Viagra, Cialis, and their respective generic equivalents, sildenafil and tadalafil — are likely safer than most supplements intended to address the same issues. That’s simply because they’ve had to clear much higher hurdles in clinical research en route to FDA approval. And given the enormous economic potential, researchers poured tremendous amounts of money into verifying their efficacy and safety. With all of that research, their potential side effects and contraindications are well-known. Check out our guide to the best ED treatments to learn more.

Penis extenders

Some men turn to ExtenZe because the company’s marketing has led them to believe it can increase their penis size. While increased blood flow to the penis can make an individual erection look bigger, it won’t permanently make your penis any larger.

Men who are serious about penis enlargement have limited options, including rather terrifying surgical procedures. The least invasive method of penis enlargement that has had some success in trials is traction therapy.16 Originally developed to treat Peyronie’s disease, users and study participants noticed marginal penis growth after daily use for multiple hours per day for several months. This process requires dedication and patience, but after several months, you could gain up to about an inch in length. And those gains in size are permanent. For many men, that’s worth the time and investment. Check out our guide to the best penis extenders.