“Should I try a saw palmetto extract?” It is one of the most asking question in treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia when I was dealing with my patients at urology clinic. Once all gentlemen who suffered from BPH are trying to avoid the conventional oral prostatic medications with various reasons for example
- They couldn’t be tolerated the side effects from oral prostatic medications – Alpha blocker, 5-Alpha reductase inhibitors
- Their prostatic symptom still mild and preferable to take a supplement rather than the medication.

When you try to search on the internet for the BPH supplements, I really believe that you will get lots of “Saw palmetto” in your searching results with tremendous brands of this supplement. The questions will go like
- How different between Saw palmetto in each branding?
- Which brands must be chosen?
Don’t be worried! Let me put it in this way to ensure. Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is the American dwarf palm tree which its extraction can act as a phytotherapy. It has several proposed mechanisms of the actions against BPH as following.
- Anti-androgenic effect
- Pro-apoptotic effect
- Anti-inflammatory effect
The active ingredients in Saw palmetto
- Fatty acids
- Phytosterols
It is commonly use in States and Europe in term of BPH supplement. However, the most of scientific papers showed “not help” in improving BPH symptom. Here are the reasons.
- It is not easy to maintain the active ingredient in each tablet when it is an herbal extraction.
- Each manufacturer used various kind of the extract preparation so some active ingredient may lose during processing

There is an interesting paper published in 2019 focus on the active ingredient and here are the clues to get the improvement in BPH
- Daily intake of Saw palmetto extract should be 320 mg a day
- Fatty acid should be more than 80% to maintain consistency results
I hope you’ll be able to get some ideas when you are interested in Saw palmetto. Please talk to your trusted urologist or you can leave me a message.
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