Energy
Rauwolscine
Rauwolscine is an alpha-yohimbine stimulant with no established human pre-workout dose or benefit.
- Clinical dose
- No established clinical dose
- Safety ceiling
- —
- Evidence
- weak
- Category
- Energy
Evidence summary
Research confidence: low
Rauwolscine (alpha-yohimbine) is distinct from yohimbine but has related adrenergic pharmacology. No human clinical study establishes its pre-workout effectiveness, safe dose, or interaction profile. Mechanistic and animal findings support treating it as a real stimulant risk, not as evidence of a human performance benefit.
Research sources
- Rauwolscine and Rauwolfia: Read Your Label Carefully (Operation Supplement Safety)(opens in new window)
- Adrenergic antagonist profiles of rauwolscine and yohimbine (1984)(opens in new window)
Animal and receptor experiments establish alpha-adrenergic activity, but they cannot establish a safe or effective pre-workout dose in humans.
- Label accuracy of botanical sports supplements (JAMA Network Open, 2023)(opens in new window)
All 13 products labeled with Rauwolfia vomitoria lacked a detectable amount of the targeted botanical ingredient, highlighting the uncertainty of plant-extract labels and their active alkaloid content.