Ashwagandha and Body Weight, Trial by Trial

No published trial of ashwagandha has ever reported weight gain as an adverse event. Four human trials measured body weight or body composition directly, and in every one the figure either stayed still or fell: down 2.32 kg over eight weeks in 52 stressed adults, down 8.46 kg over 24 weeks in 91 adults with a raised body mass index, and a mean change of 0.03 kg over twelve weeks in 40 men who were lifting weights. The ashwagandha weight gain question has a clear answer and almost nobody gives it.

What follows is every one of those trials with its size, its population, the branded extract it used, its duration and who paid for it. Then the appetite question, which is the real mechanism people are worried about, the muscle mass question, which is where the German term Muskelaufbau sits, and the much longer list of things no trial has looked at. If you are choosing whether to take this at all, the safety and legal position is a separate and more important page: ashwagandha benefits and side effects.

Why so many people ask whether ashwagandha causes weight gain

The German query Ashwagandha Gewichtszunahme is searched thousands of times a month, far more than any question about what the root does. That is unusual. People do not normally search for a supplement’s benefits and its feared side effect at the same volume, and the imbalance tells you something about how the product is being sold.

Four things feed the fear, and none of them is a trial.

The first is cortisol lore. Because ashwagandha is discussed almost entirely in terms of cortisol, and because raised cortisol is popularly linked to abdominal fat, readers reason backwards and assume that anything acting on that axis must act on body shape. The stress-axis trials themselves are handled in ashwagandha and cortisol; what matters here is that a change in a hormone measured in a blood sample is not a change in a body.

The second is the bodybuilding association. Ashwagandha is marketed heavily to men who train, next to creatine and protein, and both of those genuinely do raise the number on a scale. Guilt by shelf placement.

The third is sedation. Several assessments name drowsiness as a documented effect and Poland requires a label warning about sedatives. Someone who sleeps more and moves less will see a scale move, and will attribute it to the capsule rather than to the fortnight.

The fourth is appetite, and it is the only one with any data attached. That data is covered in its own section below, and it points the opposite way to the rumour.

How we read a trial about ashwagandha and body weight

We sell a supplement. We do not run a laboratory and we cannot generate evidence, so the only useful thing we can do is apply the same six checks to every study on this page and tell you where each one fails.

Was body weight measured, or inferred. This is the check that removes most of the internet. A trial that measured cortisol and a questionnaire score did not measure your weight, and citing it in a paragraph about weight is a category error. Only four trials belong on this page at all.

Was it a primary or a secondary outcome. In Choudhary’s 2017 trial, body weight and body mass index were secondary measures; the primary ones were a perceived stress scale and a food cravings questionnaire. A secondary outcome is not powered to answer its own question and is more likely to be a chance finding.

Which population. Adults under chronic stress, adults with a body mass index of 25.0 to 39.9, untrained young men, recreationally active men. Four trials, four different groups, and a result in one of them says nothing about the others. Nobody has measured body weight in a healthy adult of ordinary weight who is not stressed and not training.

Which extract, at which dose. The trials below use two different branded preparations, KSM-66 and Sensoril, and one is a root extract while the other is an aqueous extract of root and leaf. They are not interchangeable, and the extract that produced a result is the extract that produced it. Standardisation is unpicked in ashwagandha dosage and timing.

Duration, and what happens after it. The trials run eight, twelve and 24 weeks. There is no published follow-up after any of them, so nothing is known about whether a measured change persists, reverses, or was simply the trial itself changing how people ate.

Who supplied the material. Every trial on this page was supplied or funded by the company selling the extract in it, and every one was run at a single centre in India or the United States. That does not make a result wrong. It does mean that no independent group has reproduced any of it.

The trials that actually measured body weight

Two trials had body weight in their protocol. Here they are, with everything that decides how much they are worth.

Trial	Population	Extract, dose, duration	Body weight result	Design limits
Choudhary et al. 2017, J Evid Based Complementary Altern Med	52 adults under chronic stress, 38 men and 14 women, Pune	root extract at 5 per cent withanolides, 300 mg twice daily, 8 weeks	fall of 2.32 kg, 3.03 per cent, against 1.13 kg on placebo, P = 0.0148	secondary outcome, single centre, sponsor supported, no follow-up
Pakhale et al. 2025, Journal of Medicine and Life	100 enrolled and 91 analysed, aged 19 to 65, body mass index 25.0 to 39.9, Mumbai	KSM-66 root extract, 300 mg twice daily, 24 weeks	fall of 8.46 kg against 2.41 kg on placebo	single centre, extract supplied by manufacturer, diet and activity not monitored

Choudhary and colleagues (2017) randomised 52 adults with a history of chronic stress to 300 mg of a standardised root extract twice daily or placebo for eight weeks at a single hospital in Pune. At four weeks the difference in body weight was not statistically significant. At eight weeks it was: a fall of 3.03 per cent against 1.46 per cent, or 2.32 kg against 1.13 kg. Body mass index fell by 0.79 against 0.38 units. Serum cortisol fell by 22.2 per cent against a much smaller placebo change. Two of the 52 participants reported mild and temporary effects, listed as giddiness, heaviness of the head, blurred vision or hyperacidity.

Read the shape of that trial rather than the headline. Fifty two people, one hospital, eight weeks, weight as a secondary measure, and the placebo group also lost weight, which is what usually happens when people are weighed fortnightly by researchers. The honest reading is that in stressed adults being observed, both groups got lighter and the extract group got slightly lighter still.

Pakhale and colleagues (2025) is the larger and newer trial, and almost nothing on the first page of results mentions it. One hundred adults aged 19 to 65 with a body mass index between 25.0 and 39.9 were randomised at a metabolic clinic in Mumbai to KSM-66 root extract at 300 mg twice daily or placebo for 24 weeks, registered with the Clinical Trials Registry of India. Ninety one completed. Body weight fell by 8.46 kg against 2.41 kg and body mass index by 3.31 against 0.93 units. Food craving scores and perceived stress scores fell further in the extract group, and thirteen participants across both arms reported mild events such as nausea, abdominal pain or drowsiness.

That is a much bigger effect than Choudhary reported, and a much bigger effect is a reason for more scepticism, not less. Participants were told to keep their usual diet and activity, and the authors state plainly that diet, sleep and physical activity were not monitored or controlled. In an unsupervised six month trial, an unmonitored behaviour change is the most likely explanation for a difference of six kilograms, and the paper cannot rule it out. It is one single-centre trial, sponsored, and unreplicated. Treat it as a reason to run a bigger independent trial rather than as a result you can spend money on.

What neither trial establishes is that this product does anything to your body weight. Both measured a group average under observation, in populations selected for stress or for a raised body mass index, over a period shorter than the time most people keep a supplement in the cupboard.

Appetite, cravings and eating behaviour

This is the mechanism people actually mean when they ask whether ashwagandha makes you gain weight, and it is the one place where the data is reasonably consistent.

Chandrasekhar and colleagues (2012) ran a 64 person trial of 300 mg twice daily for 60 days and listed the adverse events in full. In the ashwagandha group they were nasal congestion, constipation, cough and cold, drowsiness, and decreased appetite. Six events in the extract group and five in the placebo group, all mild. Decreased, not increased.

Choudhary and colleagues (2017) measured eating behaviour properly rather than collecting it as a side effect. Using the Food Cravings Questionnaire, six of the nine subscales fell further in the extract group than in placebo at eight weeks, including lack of control and emotion. On the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire, uncontrolled eating fell by 4.85 points against 2.58 and emotional eating by 1.50 against 0.38. Cognitive restraint did not differ.

Two things follow. Nothing in the published record supports the idea that this root makes people eat more, and the questionnaires that were used are self-reported instruments in people who knew they were in a trial about stress and eating. A lower craving score is a lower craving score. It is not a measured change in food intake, because nobody measured food intake.

If you are worried about appetite specifically, the practical answer is unglamorous: weigh yourself on the same scale on the same morning once a week for eight weeks, and you will have better personal data than any of these trials gave you.

Muscle mass and body composition, honestly

This is where the German Ashwagandha Muskelaufbau and the French ashwagandha musculation searches land, and it is the section most pages get wrong by quoting one trial and stopping.

Wankhede and colleagues (2015), in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, randomised 57 men aged 18 to 50 with little resistance training experience to 300 mg of KSM-66 root extract twice daily or a starch placebo, alongside eight weeks of resistance training. Fifty completed. Bench press one-repetition maximum rose by 46.0 kg against 26.4 kg, leg extension by 14.5 kg against 9.8 kg, arm cross-sectional area by 8.89 cm squared against 5.30, and chest circumference by 3.37 cm against 1.43. Body fat percentage fell by 3.47 against 1.52. Serum testosterone rose further in the extract group. Thigh size did not differ. Body weight itself was not reported. The extract was supplied by its manufacturer.

Now the trial that is almost never quoted beside it. Ziegenfuss and colleagues (2018) ran the STAR trial in Nutrients: 40 recreationally active men aged 18 to 45 took 500 mg of Sensoril, an aqueous extract of root and leaf, or placebo for twelve weeks alongside a four day per week periodised programme. Squat and bench press strength rose further in the supplemented group. Body composition did not. Mean body mass changed by 0.03 kg, a difference with a P value of 0.98. Body fat percentage, fat mass and lean mass showed no significant difference from placebo. The only body composition measure that separated was the android to gynoid ratio, which stayed flat in the supplemented group and rose in placebo.

Trial	Population and duration	Extract and dose	Body composition outcome
Wankhede et al. 2015	57 untrained men, 8 weeks with training	KSM-66, 300 mg twice daily	body fat percentage fell 3.47 against 1.52 on placebo; body weight not reported
Ziegenfuss et al. 2018, STAR	40 recreationally active men, 12 weeks with training	Sensoril, 500 mg daily	body mass, fat mass, lean mass and body fat percentage all no different from placebo

Two trials, two extracts, two populations, opposite findings on body composition. That is what an unsettled question looks like.

The pooled evidence agrees. Lee and Heo (2026), in Nutrients, ran a random-effects meta-analysis of randomised trials combining a standardised extract with structured resistance training in healthy adults, and reported greater gains than placebo in bench press one-repetition maximum, lower-body strength and chest circumference, but not in body fat. Their own conclusion is that the current evidence does not establish that adjunctive ashwagandha meaningfully enhances resistance-training adaptations, on a small and statistically fragile base rated low to very low certainty. Li and colleagues (2026), in the same journal, pooled thirteen trials and 599 participants on exercise performance and found strength effects positive but statistically uncertain, with power outcomes showing no clear improvement at all.

If you train and you are considering this, the defensible expectation is a possible edge on a strength number, on low certainty evidence, and no expected change in what the scale says.

What nobody has measured

The absences are more useful than the findings, because they are where every confident claim on this subject is coming from.

Body weight in ordinary healthy adults. Every trial above selected for something: chronic stress, a body mass index above 25, or a resistance training programme. If you are of ordinary weight, not stressed and not lifting, there is no trial that has weighed anyone like you.

Women as a study population. Choudhary’s trial included 14 women out of 52. The two exercise trials were men only. No trial has reported body weight in women as a primary outcome, and none has looked at it across the menstrual cycle or through menopause.

Anything beyond 24 weeks. The longest trial that measured body weight ran six months. Nothing is published on what a year of daily use does to weight, appetite or body composition, and both the German and Dutch risk assessments make the same point about long-term use generally.

Actual food intake. Every eating measure in this literature is a questionnaire. No trial has weighed food or measured energy intake, so the mechanism behind the reported weight differences is unknown.

Shilajit and body weight. The Italian shilajit fa dimagrire and German Shilajit abnehmen queries have no better answer. No trial of shilajit on its own has measured body weight or body fat as a primary outcome, and the one trial that reported body composition buried 6 to 12 mg of shilajit inside a multi-ingredient formula while every participant trained and ate less. That is set out in full in shilajit benefits, and there is nothing to add to it here.

What is not established, and who should not take it

No health claim for ashwagandha is authorised in the European Union. Under Regulation (EC) 1924/2006, EFSA assesses claims before the Commission may authorise them, and claims for botanicals have sat on hold since 2010. Anyone printing a body weight promise on a label or a landing page is doing it without authorisation, not with it.

Nothing above establishes that ashwagandha acts on body weight, appetite or body composition in you. Four trials measured group averages in selected populations over eight to 24 weeks, sponsored, single-centre and unreplicated. That is a signal worth a bigger trial, not a settled fact.

The exclusions matter more than the findings. Do not take ashwagandha if you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Do not give it to anyone under eighteen. Do not take it if you have thyroid, liver, cardiac or other endocrine disease, and note that thyroid disease is directly relevant here because thyroid hormones and body weight travel together. Anyone taking prescribed medication, and particularly antidiabetic, antihypertensive, sedative or immunosuppressant medicines, should speak to a doctor or pharmacist before starting. Ashwagandha is unlawful to sell as food in Denmark, and four European risk bodies have assessed it since 2020 without being able to set a safe intake level. The country by country position, with dates, and the liver case reports behind it are in ashwagandha benefits and side effects.

Stop and seek medical advice if you develop nausea, unusual tiredness, itching, or yellowing of the skin or eyes.

What actually decides this

If your question was whether this will make you heavier, the record is as clean as this literature gets: no trial reported weight gain, and the trial that watched trained men most closely for twelve weeks measured a mean change of 0.03 kg. If your question was whether it will make you lighter, the honest answer is that two sponsored single-centre trials in selected populations reported it and nobody independent has repeated them, which is not enough to buy a product on.

What is left is a judgement about a different thing entirely: whether the stress and sleep outcomes are worth an unquantified liver risk in a plant with no European safe intake level. Our ashwagandha and shilajit capsules carry 250 mg of ashwagandha alongside 250 mg of shilajit extract, and every caution on this page applies to them exactly as it does to any other ashwagandha product. If you are still deciding whether an adaptogen belongs in your week at all, what are adaptogens grades eight of them by the strength of the evidence, which is the question underneath this one.