Gokshura Extract (Tribulus terrestris)

Gokshura extract is produced from the dried ripe fruit of Tribulus terrestris L. (Zygophyllaceae), the part specified as Gokshura in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India. The fruit carries a mixed steroidal saponin profile of spirostanol and furostanol glycosides; the marker most often written into buyer specifications is protodioscin, a furostanol saponin, CAS 55056-80-9, C51H84O22, molecular weight 1049.20, with the sapogenin diosgenin, CAS 512-04-9, C27H42O3, molecular weight 414.62, sometimes named as a secondary marker. One technical point is worth more than any sales line, because getting it wrong is how buyers end up with a failed COA. Protodioscin content in Tribulus is chemotype- and plant-part-dependent, not a grade you can simply order. Work published in Phytochemistry (Dinchev et al., 2008) comparing material from different regions found Indian and Vietnamese samples to contain negligible protodioscin and to lack prototribestin and tribestin altogether, while the high-protodioscin profile is characteristic of Bulgarian and Mediterranean aerial-part material. Market surveys of finished Tribulus products have reported protodioscin ranging from 0.17% to 6.49%. Thovek therefore standardises Indian fruit extract on total steroidal saponins by gravimetry at 20%, 40%, 60% and 90% w/w, and quotes a protodioscin figure by HPLC only against material whose chemotype genuinely supports it. A supplier who offers you 40% protodioscin from Indian fruit at a commodity price is either mis-assaying or spiking. Fruit is contracted from collection and cultivation areas across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, cleaned and de-stemmed at intake, then extracted with water or ethanol–water without chlorinated solvents. Sports-nutrition customers can request additional documentation for their own banned-substance screening programmes, and every lot ships with a CoA covering assay, loss on drying, ash, heavy metals, microbiology, pesticide screening and residual solvents. This is a characterised botanical raw material — Thovek makes no health or therapeutic claim for it, and claim substantiation and permitted-use status in the destination market rest with the brand owner or importer.