Maca has been cultivated in the harsh, high-altitude conditions of the Peruvian Andes — often above 4,000 meters, where few other food crops survive — for over two thousand years, making it one of the highest-altitude traditional food and medicine crops in the world. Incan civilization reportedly valued maca so highly that it was used as currency and even, according to some historical accounts, restricted from common consumption at certain points, reserved for nobility and warriors before battle.
Spanish colonial records from the 16th century documented indigenous use of maca for fertility and vitality, noting that Spanish livestock introduced to the region also showed improved fertility when grazing on maca. Maca nearly disappeared from wider cultivation for centuries, remaining a localized Andean crop, before a resurgence of international scientific and commercial interest beginning in the late 20th century.
Maca has a genuinely interesting collection of small, positive randomized controlled trials, though the overall picture is complicated by inconsistency in preparation and dosing. A double-blind, placebo-controlled trial found maca improved SSRI-induced sexual dysfunction in postmenopausal women specifically, and a separate randomized trial found postmenopausal women taking 3.5g of maca daily for six weeks experienced significant improvements in sexual function and reduced psychological symptoms compared to placebo.
A comprehensive 2022 systematic review of maca's effects on sexual dysfunction and menopausal symptoms found enough individual positive trials to be encouraging, but explicitly noted that pooling the studies into a single meta-analysis wasn't feasible due to major differences in maca variety (yellow, red, and black maca may have different effects), preparation, and dosing across studies. This is a genuine, real signal across multiple independent small trials, but the field hasn't yet produced the kind of large, standardized trial that would support a higher rating.
Root dried and ground into flour or powder, traditionally roasted or boiled before consumption; also fermented into a traditional Andean beverage called "maca chicha."