Have you ever heard of “natural” male enhancement pills? Of course, you have. Have you ever considered using them? Oh, c’mon, you know you have. But the questions is: Are natural male enhancement pills bull, or do they work? Here is the deal.

Approach male-enhancement pills as you would salesmen at a flea market: There’s a kernel of truth in what they claim, but believe only half of what you hear.

“The effectiveness of those pills really depends on what you’re trying to enhance,” explains Michael B. Chancellor, MD, a professor of urology at the University of Pittsburgh.

If you want to, say, increase the size of your manhood, as widely advertised products like Enzyte have claimed to do, you’re out of luck. Short of plastic surgery, “it’s impossible to make your member any larger,” says Dr. Chancellor.

“You can chalk ‘testimonials from satisfied users’ up to overactive imaginations.” However, an overactive imagination is exactly what makes male-enhancement pills so potent for men with waning libidos.

It’s called the placebo effect, and a study in the Journal of Urology found that men given a sugar pill instead of Viagra still reported a 24 percent increase in their ability to maintain an erection.

To be fair, many enhancement pills do contain herbs that small studies have shown to enhance libido. (A report in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, for example, found that men taking 15 mg of yohimbe a day saw mild benefits in bed due to improved blood flow.)

Even so, the pills’ most potent quality is their influence on the male psyche, says Dr. Chancellor. “The mind is a powerful thing,” he adds. “If you want something to work badly enough, it often does.” [via]