Digestery
Everyday supplements › Ashwagandha and Stress › Studies

Randomized trial · measured the question itself

8-week trial in 52 adults under long-term stress: ashwagandha improved stress scores and cortisol

Choudhary and colleagues · Journal of evidence-based complementary & alternative medicine · 2017

Original title: Body Weight Management in Adults Under Chronic Stress Through Treatment With Ashwagandha Root Extract: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trial.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to benefit

Perceived Stress Scale and Food Cravings Questionnaire (main measures) improved with ashwagandha. Serum cortisol, body weight and BMI also improved. The abstract gives no scores.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Randomized trial
Who or what was studied
52 people · adults under long-term stress
What was tested
300 mg of ashwagandha root extract twice a day for 8 weeks, vs placebo
What it measured
The question itself: stress, anxiety and cortisol
Daily amount
600 mg a day
How long
8 weeks
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Journal of evidence-based complementary & alternative medicine, 2017
Source
PubMed record 27055824. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • ✓Randomized: people were put into groups by chance, so the groups start out alike.
  • ✓Compared with a placebo, a dummy treatment.
  • •Medium size: 52 people.
  • –Short: 8 weeks. Longer-term effects are unknown.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: stress, anxiety and cortisol.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: stress and anxiety

    9

    7 benefit, 2 no difference

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    6

    3 benefit, 1 mixed, 1 no difference, 1 no direction

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    1

    1 benefit

  4. Population studies

    1

    1 benefit

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does ashwagandha reduce stress and anxiety?”

Possibly, but the evidence is weak.

Confidence: low. Based on 24 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 8 papers on the same step: 6 benefit, 2 no difference. This one found benefit. It agrees with most of them.

  • Marked as a key paper in the research timeline: Earliest trial here: stress and food cravings, 52 people.

Other papers on the same step

See all 24 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
Not yet. Required before search engines may list this page.

Spot an error? Email a flag with a link to your source, or use the form on the question page.