Okay but you might not like it LOL
Saw Palmetto Is Garbage -Roger Mason
Saw palmetto is useless. For years now we've been explaining why saw palmetto, Pygeum africanum, nettles, and similar herbs do not work, have no therapeutic effect, do not help prostate health in any way, and are mere promotional scams. Yet, men keep buying countless millions of dollars worth of saw palmetto and other such worthless products every year.
Almost every chain drug store, natural food store, vitamin catalog, and Internet health site sells a saw palmetto product. No matter where you go you see saw palmetto, Pygeum africanum and other herbal prostate products sold. All of them are equally worthless. In my book The Natural Prostate Cure it is explained why they have no value at all- there's nothing in them. The active ingredient is the beta-sitosterol complex. This includes beta-sitosterol, campesterol, stigmasterol, and brassicasterol. In the trade all these are simply called "beta-sitosterol" or even "phytosterols", which means sterols from plants. Sterols are steroid alcohols by the way.
Beta-sitosterol is literally three thousand time stronger than saw palmetto powder. This means you would have to eat three thousand capsules of saw palmetto powder to get one single capsule of beta-sitosterol. Scientific fact. What about the extracts, one might ask? The very, very best saw palmetto extracts are only ten to one extractions, so you would still need to eat 300 capsules of saw palmetto extract every day. Notice what they say on the extract bottles, "contains 85% fatty acids and sterols". This means you get 99% fatty acids and maybe 1% sterols- if you're lucky.
So, where do you get beta-sitosterol? The three main sources for getting these mixed sterols inexpensively by the ton are, 1) sugar cane pulp after the sugar has been extracted, 2) soybeans after several other valuable ingredients (isoflavones, vitamin E, lecithin, etc.) have been extracted, and 3) pine oil after it has been processed for other products.
Want proof of how useless saw palmetto and Pygeum africanum are? Here is a typical study right from the Gazzetta Chimica Italiana (v 118, 1988). Chemists at the University of Milan extracted saw palmetto berries and submitted them to very extensive analysis. They basically found common fatty acids like we find in our everyday foods. They found very minor amounts of carotenoids, alcohols, polysaccharides, and a tiny, tiny bit of beta-sitosterol complex. In fact they found a mere one part in 5,000 of mixed sterols, or only one fiftieth of one per cent. This is one part in five thousand folks. You would have to eat 5,000 capsules to get less than 500 mg of beta-sitosterols from their analysis.
You need a good 300 mg dose of beta-sitosterol daily to support good prostate health or to help normalize your cholesterol levels. You can double this if you have a more serious condition. Puritan's Pride sells beta-sitosterol as "Phytosterol Complex", but they refuse to tell you what a “serving” is. Moducare® sells a mere 30 mg of beta-sitosterol, and has the nerve to charge $29.95 for it. This means you would have to eat ten capsules a day. Life Extinction- as you would expect- sells a variety of saw palmetto products and refuses to sell pure beta-sitosterol.
The real problem with selling garbage like saw palmetto products is they mislead people. A man with BPH (prostate enlargement) or prostatitis may take saw palmetto to avoid the horrors of surgery, toxic drugs, impotence, and wearing diapers. He takes saw palmetto for a few months, gets worse, decides that natural medicine is a fraud, and goes back to his family doctor. Men should take this as part of a comprehensive program for all prostate conditions. There are published clinical studies that indicate beta-sitosterol is also a very powerful supplement for breast, colon, and prostate cancers.
There's always debate about everthing
REP
10-31-2009, 12:48 PM
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