Boswellia Supplements: The AKBA Number That Isn't on the Label

What to buy

Life Extension Boswellia is our pick. One capsule holds 100 mg of AprèsFlex (20% AKBA), the extract and amount used in knee arthritis trials, for $0.28 a day at its own price. It is not on NSF/ANSI 173 or the other testing lists we checked.

Life Extension Boswellia (AprèsFlex)
Our pick · 100 mg AprèsFlex

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Want one on a public testing list? NSF/ANSI 173, which checks that a product matches its label, lists Thorne Boswellia Phytosome. We found no knee trial of this form.

Thorne Boswellia Phytosome
NSF/ANSI 173

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Where to go next

• Best boswellia supplement: the products we compared, ranked.
• Boswellia prices: cost per serving by brand.

What boswellia does

Boswellia serrata, also called Indian frankincense, is a tree. Supplements use an extract of its gum resin.

What trials found for each use.

Use	Evidence	What trials found
Knee arthritis	Some, low certainty	Two trials with 85 people found pain 17 points lower on a 0 to 100 scale after 90 days (Cochrane 2014). A 2024 review of 13 studies found no clear effect overall because the studies differed (Dalmonte 2024).
Crohn’s disease	No benefit	A year-long trial found no difference from placebo in staying in remission (Holtmeier 2011).
Colitis	Thin	A small trial in collagenous colitis helped only when dropouts were left out (Madisch 2007); the ulcerative colitis trial had no placebo (Gupta 1997).
Asthma	Thin	One 6-week trial of 80 people from 1998 reported improvement in 70% vs 27% on placebo (Gupta 1998); a review said herbal asthma trials were small and short (Clark 2010).

Which extracts and amounts trials used

Knee trials tested named extracts: 5-LOXIN (30% AKBA) at 100 or 250 mg a day (Sengupta 2008), AprèsFlex, also sold as Aflapin (20% AKBA), at 100 mg a day (Vishal 2011), and Boswellin Super at 150 or 300 mg twice a day (Majeed 2024). These trials ran 30 to 90 days.

Who ran the trials

Several trials list authors from the companies that make the extract: the 5-LOXIN trial lists only the maker’s research center (Sengupta 2008), and the Boswellin Super trial’s authors worked for its maker, Sami-Sabinsa (Majeed 2024).

How to read a boswellia label

Look for a named extract and its milligrams. A boswellic acid percent alone does not match a tested product, and an “herbal equivalent” is not the weight of the extract inside.

Is boswellia safe?

Reviews found no serious side effects and no more side effects than placebo, in trials of 30 to 180 days (Cameron 2014; Liu 2018). A few things to check:

• Medicines: in a lab study, boswellia blocked a pump that moves some drugs out of cells, so a drug interaction cannot be ruled out (Weber 2006). Ask your doctor if you take any medicine.
• Pregnant or breastfeeding: we found no studies; ask your doctor first.

Questions people ask

Is AKBA the active ingredient?

It is one of them. In a test tube, AKBA blocks 5-LOX, an enzyme involved in inflammation (Safayhi 1996). But in a lab test on immune cells, an extract with 3% AKBA worked about half as well as one with 30% and far better for its amount of AKBA, which points to other active parts (Nischang 2025).

Sources

1. Cameron M, et al. “Oral herbal therapies for treating osteoarthritis.” Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014. PubMed 24848732
2. Dalmonte T, et al. “Efficacy of Extracts of Oleogum Resin of Boswellia in the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.” Phytother Res. 2024. PubMed 39314013
3. Yu G, et al. “Effectiveness of Boswellia and Boswellia extract for osteoarthritis patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” BMC Complement Med Ther. 2020. PubMed 32680575
4. Liu X, et al. “Dietary supplements for treating osteoarthritis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Br J Sports Med. 2018. PubMed 29018060
5. Sengupta K, et al. “A double blind, randomized, placebo controlled study of the efficacy and safety of 5-Loxin for treatment of osteoarthritis of the knee.” Arthritis Res Ther. 2008. PubMed 18667054
6. Vishal AA, et al. “A double blind, randomized, placebo controlled clinical study evaluates the early efficacy of aflapin in subjects with osteoarthritis of knee.” Int J Med Sci. 2011. PubMed 22022214
7. Majeed A, et al. “A standardized Boswellia serrata extract shows improvements in knee osteoarthritis within five days-a double-blind, randomized, three-arm, parallel-group, multi-center, placebo-controlled trial.” Front Pharmacol. 2024. PubMed 39092235
8. Holtmeier W, et al. “Randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial of Boswellia serrata in maintaining remission of Crohn's disease: good safety profile but lack of efficacy.” Inflamm Bowel Dis. 2011. PubMed 20848527
9. Madisch A, et al. “Boswellia serrata extract for the treatment of collagenous colitis. A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial.” Int J Colorectal Dis. 2007. PubMed 17764013
10. Gupta I, et al. “Effects of Boswellia serrata gum resin in patients with ulcerative colitis.” Eur J Med Res. 1997. PubMed 9049593
11. Gupta I, et al. “Effects of Boswellia serrata gum resin in patients with bronchial asthma: results of a double-blind, placebo-controlled, 6-week clinical study.” Eur J Med Res. 1998. PubMed 9810030
12. Clark CE, et al. “Herbal interventions for chronic asthma in adults and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” Prim Care Respir J. 2010. PubMed 20640388
13. Safayhi H, et al. “5-Lipoxygenase inhibition by acetyl-11-keto-β-boswellic acid (AKBA) by a novel mechanism.” Phytomedicine. 1996. PubMed 23194864
14. Nischang V, et al. “Boswellia serrata extract with low 3O-acetyl-11-keto-β-boswellic acid-content causes efficient lipid mediator class switch.” Phytomedicine. 2025. PubMed 41075523
15. Weber CC, et al. “Modulation of Pgp function by boswellic acids.” Planta Med. 2006. PubMed 16773534